Does weather radar work in the Fenix A320

[Jeff D 13]

Been flying the FBW for quite a while now. Unfortunately the radar weather in that plane is inop. Does the radar work in the Fenix?

 

[Cognita 1,054]

No, weather radar has not been implemented due to the limitations of accessing the necessary data from the simulator.

[RaptyrOne 1,398]

I don’t think the weather radar works in any aircraft, including Fenix and PMDG 737’s. Those aircraft that display a weather pattern on the radar are really just drawing in a simulation that is not a true reflection of what is going on in the air ahead of the aircraft.

This aspect needs to be refined by Asobo, not the aircraft devs. I flew the A32NX for the first time in a while the other day and weather radar inop sticker has been removed but it will suffer the same Asobo shortcoming.

[Cognita 1,054]

Actually, the "weather map" from MSFS draws a top-down picture of precipitation, neglecting altitude. So, if there is heavy rain in clouds from 4,000 to 12,000 feet, the radar will depict this as orange and red on your screen even if you are flying at 38,000 feet and that weather is well below you, and hence irrelevant to you. For this reason, in its present state it is pretty useless for airline and corporate flying as those aircraft cruise well above most weather. If we relied on the current radar to analyze our situation, we would be diverting all over the place around storms 10,000 feet below us. Asobo has the data, they have to figure out how to provide access to it in a three-dimensional rather than the current two-dimensional view. Thye are apparently investigating it.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Cognita

[abrams_tank 7,393]

2 hours ago, Cognita said:

Actually, the "weather map" from MSFS draws a top-down picture of precipitation, neglecting altitude. So, if there is heavy rain in clouds from 4,000 to 12,000 feet, the radar will depict this as orange and red on your screen even if you are flying at 38,000 feet and that weather is well below you, and hence irrelevant to you. For this reason, in its present state it is pretty useless for airline and corporate flying as those aircraft cruise well above most weather. If we relied on the current radar to analyze our situation, we would be diverting all over the place around storms 10,000 feet below us. Asobo has the data, they have to figure out how to provide access to it in a three-dimensional rather than the current two-dimensional view. Thye are apparently investigating it.

Hmm, what you said seems to be inaccurate, as of SU10.  Matt Nischan, the head of Working Title, gave an example of what the weather radar SDK can do in SU10. From what I read from Matt Nischan's comments, the SU10 weather radar API for WASM does cover various altitudes (fyi, Matt Nischan goes by the username Bishop398 in the official MSFS forum) . This is what Matt Nischan wrote:

 

Quote

Here, I’ll show it instead. Maximum precip, single full coverage full density cloud layer from 2000 to 4000 AGL (ignore the lack of magenta and the black bars on the sides, just threw this test together without customizing any API parameters).

0 AGL:

3000ft AGL (directly in the middle of the layer):

7000ft AGL (3000ft above the layer):

10000ft AGL (6000ft above the layer):

As you can see, it very obviously uses a conic section, as evidenced by returns from the 2Kft layer moving closer to the aircraft as the layer and aircraft altitudes become coincident, and then further away as you go higher. I can only assume the developers are misunderstanding something about the API, made an assumption and didn’t try it for themselves, or are using the incorrect return mode and instead using the NEXRAD style one.

NEXRAD style mode at 10Kft:

You can see here in Matt NIschan's explanation that various altitudes are clearly covered so I don't know what you mean by "neglecting altitude."

Edited November 23, 2022 by abrams_tank

[Fiorentoni 4,119]

34 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Hmm, what you said seems to be inaccurate, as of SU10.  Matt Nischan, the head of Working Title, gave an example of what the weather radar SDK can do in SU10. From what I read from Matt Nischan's comments, the SU10 weather radar API for WASM does cover various altitudes (fyi, Matt Nischan goes by the username Bishop398 in the official MSFS forum) . This is what Matt Nischan wrote:

 

You can see here in Matt NIschan's explanation that various altitudes are clearly covered so I don't know what you mean by "neglecting altitude."

Every single aircraft developer (PMDG, Fenix, Leonardo, Aerosoft, FBW) has affirmed that it is useless in the current state. With all due respect, but I rather trust the expertise of decade-long developers of study level aircraft than the expertise of a developer who a) has developed mods for default aircraft and Garmins and who b) is an employee of Asobo, who are logically interested in presenting their work as "sufficient".

[abrams_tank 7,393]

22 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

Every single aircraft developer (PMDG, Fenix, Leonardo, Aerosoft, FBW) has affirmed that it is useless in the current state. With all due respect, but I rather trust the expertise of decade-long developers of study level aircraft than the expertise of a developer who a) has developed mods for default aircraft and Garmins and who b) is an employee of Asobo, who are logically interested in presenting their work as "sufficient".

Yes, some of them said this before SU10 for WASM.  Are you sure they said this after SU10 was released? And if so, do you have the links to those comments so we can check the date of them?

And I am not saying the current weather radar for WASM can meet the needs of all the aircraft developers. So please don't twist my words because I didn't say that.

However, the weather radar, as Matt Nischan demonstrated, can return different altitudes.  This is what I was replying to.

BTW, the developers are not always right.  In late December of 2021 to January of 2022 (I can't remember the exact date, but this was about the time frame), PMDG said the MSFS SDK could not do what they wanted to do, and the release of the PMDG 737 was blocked because of this.  Randazzo insisted that it was Asobo's fault.  Then Asobo sat down with PMDG and explained that the SDK could do what PMDG wanted.  It was Randazzo and PMDG, who misunderstood the capabilities of the MSFS SDK.  After that meeting, Randazzo suddenly said there is nothing blocking PMDG anymore from releasing the 737.  So nothing changed with the SDK in that meeting, only that Randazzo's and PMDG's understanding of the SDK changed.

Is this another case of misunderstanding? I don't know. Matt Nischan said in the quote that I posted:

Quote

I can only assume the developers are misunderstanding something about the API, made an assumption and didn’t try it for themselves, or are using the incorrect return mode and instead using the NEXRAD style one.

I trust Matt Nischan.  While he works for the MSFS team, Matt has been pretty forthcoming and pretty on the ball for most issues.  This isn't to say that the weather SDK for MSFS is still capable of doing everything that PMDG, Fenix, etc, want to do, but a least for various altitudes, I don't have a reason not to trust what Matt says.

Edited November 23, 2022 by abrams_tank

[sd_flyer 6,032]

14 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

Every single aircraft developer (PMDG, Fenix, Leonardo, Aerosoft, FBW) has affirmed that it is useless in the current state. With all due respect, but I rather trust the expertise of decade-long developers of study level aircraft than the expertise of a developer who a) has developed mods for default aircraft and Garmins and who b) is an employee of Asobo, who are logically interested in presenting their work as "sufficient".

That is appeal to authority. LOL I don't follow all developers closely but I can't remember reading official verdict from for example PMDG. There was one personal opinion of PMDG tester  and RW 737 driver who in my understanding is not developer. Did I miss something? Can you provide reference?

[Zangoose 1,631]

In terms of Fenix - This is what Dave (Staff Memeber) said about it on their Discord server - There is some more if you search for WXR on there. 

Quote

 

So a couple points:

1. It's not possible to integrate the Asobo WXR into our displays, as it's only available to a specific type of display/gauge format which a lot of developers don't use for various reasons, and has other technical limitations associated with it.

2. Even if we did, initial R&D shows a performance hit, maybe it's worth a few FPS to some people, maybe not for others.

3. Have you tried using this in default aircraft? We did, and found it woefully inaccurate and borderline dangerous to actually use for weather avoidance. It's very pretty though. 

I'm pretty sure if we went through several months of work to get the default WXR bitmap, within 2 weeks no one would bother using it as it doesn't actually have much functional purpose.

So it comes down to this: how much time would you want us to completely stall all development on the A320 to implement a less-than-satisfactory version of WXR? a month? 5 months? 12? Our current estimates if we were to start today is it'd be about 3-6 months before we had something, and in that time we would be unable to work on anything else.

 

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Zangoose

[abrams_tank 7,393]

20 minutes ago, Zangoose said:

In terms of Fenix - This is what Dave (Staff Memeber) said about it on their Discord server - There is some more if you search for WXR on there. 

 

Thanks for the reference. I read a little more about what Dave wanted, and Dave mentioned this:

Quote

if they'd let us choose the slice angle then it's a whole other matter (basically what tilt does)

So it looks like Fenix would like "tilt" or what Dave calls, "slice angle" to be available in the weather radar SDK for WASM.  I assume this isn't implemented yet by Asobo.

But I think we should be very accurate with our terminology. The weather radar does support various altitudes, based on what Matt NIschan said. But if what Dave is saying, it may not support "tilt" or "slice angle," which is what Fenix appears to need.

Edited November 23, 2022 by abrams_tank

[WestAir 2,522]

39 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

That is appeal to authority. LOL I don't follow all developers closely but I can't remember reading official verdict from for example PMDG. There was one personal opinion of PMDG tester  and RW 737 driver who in my understanding is not developer. Did I miss something? Can you provide reference?

And quoting Matt isn't an appeal to authority? In any case he's not even wrong; There's a reason FBW, PMDG, FNX, ect all haven't implemented WXR's into their cockpits despite all of them saying they would once the API was available. All three dev teams state the weather API is not in a state they're willing to use. All of them.

Speaking of the quote from Matt, it's all fine and dandy to utilize flat bitmaps at pre-selected altitudes but if we're talking about realism I have to ask: Can it tilt? Will it give ground returns? Does the intensity change based on the amount of precip? Does it attenuate against a wall of rain? Show windshear? Can it be reformatted to conform with different aircraft types?

There's a reason WXR was brought up in this weeks Q&A almost right away. I have hope Asobo's discussions with Meteoblue will reap the rewards we're looking for; otherwise we run a real risk of never seeing WXR in our favorite study level aircraft.

Edited November 23, 2022 by WestAir

[WestAir 2,522]

17 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

it may not support "tilt" or "slice angle," which is what Fenix appears to need.

Which all pilots need. From a pilot standpoint tilt is equally as important as same altitude depiction. Imagine you're cruising at FL300 and a cell is ahead. You don't have the fuel to divert around it, so you tilt up to see if you can climb over it. This sort of capability is fundamental to your aeronautical decision-making.

There's a lot more functionality you get than just microwaves bouncing off water molecules: There's also predictive windshear and different types of returns for wet hail (obviously not in MSFS yet), dry snow, or turbulence in precipitation. The beam won't show stuff behind strong returns (you'll get empty space where there could be a huge storm) and you may be able to spot obstacles or terrain with the thing. It would be fantastic if Meteoblue could open up the curtains to let these passionate devs do what they do best, because MSFS absolutely has the fidelity to give us the best rendition of the WXR in flight sim-

But that may not be what's in store for us. It's all up to Meteoblue, honestly.

[Fiorentoni 4,119]

3 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

That is appeal to authority. LOL I don't follow all developers closely but I can't remember reading official verdict from for example PMDG. There was one personal opinion of PMDG tester  and RW 737 driver who in my understanding is not developer. Did I miss something? Can you provide reference?

All of those I mentioned explicitly said it was useless, especially after SU10 @abrams_tank. I‘m at work so cannot give you any direct links to those (inofficial) statements, but RSR said so on the PMDG forums multiple times (just use search over there) and Dave, one of the leading Fenix devs, said so on Discord (also easily searchable).
There‘s a video from 737NGDriver over at youtube who explains why it is useless (he‘s a tester for PMDG), if you are interested. Again no link because at work, sorry 🙂

[sd_flyer 6,032]

4 hours ago, WestAir said:

And quoting Matt isn't an appeal to authority? In any case he's not even wrong; There's a reason FBW, PMDG, FNX, ect all haven't implemented WXR's into their cockpits despite all of them saying they would once the API was available. All three dev teams state the weather API is not in a state they're willing to use. All of them.

Speaking of the quote from Matt, it's all fine and dandy to utilize flat bitmaps at pre-selected altitudes but if we're talking about realism I have to ask: Can it tilt? Will it give ground returns? Does the intensity change based on the amount of precip? Does it attenuate against a wall of rain? Show windshear? Can it be reformatted to conform with different aircraft types?

There's a reason WXR was brought up in this weeks Q&A almost right away. I have hope Asobo's discussions with Meteoblue will reap the rewards we're looking for; otherwise we run a real risk of never seeing WXR in our favorite study level aircraft.

No! Appeal to authority is logical argument when person instead providing fact appear to opinion of well respected person. From all I can tell inBuilds WX radar can be titled and show volumetric weather. Of course I welcome any improvements  for weather API.

As far as extreme realism we fly a lot of airplanes without changing oil, or hydraulic fluid and it doesn't kill immersion. I'd say even to have radar like in A310 would be great.

Edited November 23, 2022 by sd_flyer

[sd_flyer 6,032]

54 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

All of those I mentioned explicitly said it was useless, especially after SU10 @abrams_tank. I‘m at work so cannot give you any direct links to those (inofficial) statements, but RSR said so on the PMDG forums multiple times (just use search over there) and Dave, one of the leading Fenix devs, said so on Discord (also easily searchable).
There‘s a video from 737NGDriver over at youtube who explains why it is useless (he‘s a tester for PMDG), if you are interested. Again no link because at work, sorry 🙂

Yes I watched 737NGDriver were he clearly stated it his own opinion and understanding - not PMDG. Also he is not developer but a tester.

I did monitor PMDG forum in this regard and Fenix on discord. I can't recall anything more "we are looking into it" or "when we ready we will show". There was no distinct verdict provided. I can't tell for Leonardo tough I don't know where he hangs out.