Back on 5 September 2023 I was a passenger in a friend’s Piper PA28-181 Archer II. We departed Harwarden airport in North Wales and flew over the Wirral, crossing over Liverpool before a circuit of both Everton and Liverpool football grounds.

The flight continued up the west coast passing Blackpool, the Lake District before landing at Carlisle.

The day was cloudless with a light wind from the east. A rare day. Max temp was 28°C (82°F). So a very warm day for these latitudes. There was a large area of high pressure over the country with pressure around 1020hPa (30.05”).

Now to my point. Around 1,500ft the turbulence from ground warming was quite significant. I was struggling to keep my Nikon SLR steady when over land.

But when we flew over water things smoothed out considerably.

If you had that kind of weather in your sim would those conditions be experienced? Turbulence over warm land dropping off when over water. It really surprised me.

Over the Lakes we climbed to 8,000ft and things were pretty smooth. Not so lower down. Any sim that can reproduce that sort of realism would be very good indeed.

I seem to remember getting such effects with FSX, Active Sky and CumulusX. CumulusX was pretty good about analyzing the terrain type and generating updrafts (and turbulence) appropriate for what was on the ground and generating cumulus clouds to mark updrafts.

Active Sky and CumulusX worked together really well.

Hook

This is just a wild guess, but we're not quite there yet in any of the sims nor addons such as Active Sky. Like you describe, I've felt that, bumpy over land on a hot day and smoothing out over water. But I hope I'm wrong, maybe such conditions are being reproduced in a sim. I haven't flown general aviation planes in a sim in a long time. But your post makes me curious to get back in a smaller plane in the sim. I suppose people with good laptops and internet on the go might be able to test such things, going up in a small plane, landing at an airfield perhaps with picnic tables in the shade, and then checking the conditions they were just in in real life, how they compare. I'd be up for trying that.

15 minutes ago, LHookins said:

I seem to remember getting such effects with FSX, Active Sky and CumulusX

It must have been CumulusX that added the turbulence. Pretty good for such an old sim.

I was going to post in the MSFS forum but a neutral zone seems best. If there were addons for FSX maybe they had them in XP too. I did wonder if MSFS would deliver directly given the close bond with Meteo.

"There was a large area of high pressure over the country with pressure around 1020hPa (30.05”)"

 

Does ATC always announce QNH in hPa units everywhere around the world? Or do they use other units in some countries?

26 minutes ago, Fielder said:

"There was a large area of high pressure over the country with pressure around 1020hPa (30.05”)"

Does ATC always announce QNH in hPa units everywhere around the world? Or do they use other units in some countries?

The US uses inches. All of Europe to my knowledge uses hPa, formerly millibars.

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Any sim that can reproduce that sort of realism would be very good indeed.

FSX/P3D includes turbulence and thermal effects, but I wonder how the thermal effects are generated?  Does the terrain influence this?  I think only someone from LM could answer that.

Dave

1 hour ago, Fielder said:

Does ATC always announce QNH in hPa units everywhere around the world? Or do they use other units in some countries?

You'd think this would be standardized worldwide as far as aviation is concerned.

For example, as far as I know altitude in feet is used in every country even though they use the metric system. 

I grew up using the Imperial measurement system and learned the metric system in school, but in the USA the metric system is mainly only used in scientific and technical fields.  Even the manufacturing industry in the USA still uses the imperial system a lot.

Those of us who work on stuff have to have both SAE and metric tools to be able to work on domestic and imported equipment.

There was an airline accident in Canada back in the 70s or 80s where the plane ran out of fuel.  The cause was determined to be a mistake in converting the fuel weight from pounds to kilos.

In aviation, at least, units of measurement need to be standardized.  I would go with metric as most of the world uses that system.  I still like my feet, miles, and pounds for everyday stuff, though.😉

Dave

8 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

FSX/P3D includes turbulence and thermal effects, but I wonder how the thermal effects are generated?  Does the terrain influence this?  I think only someone from LM could answer that.

Dave

We know LM won’t discuss this. The reason I gave the weather info is so users could setup a scenario to test what happens in the sim they use.

I would consider this an acid test of any sim’s capabilities. The sun heating up the ground causing thermals to be generated should be common in warmer climates. In tropical ones it should be there all through daylight hours.

What’s MSFS like? Surely with the complex weather from MeteoBlue it should in theory be the most accurate.

7 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

You'd think this would be standardized worldwide as far as aviation is concerned.

Russia and some satellite countries use metres, not feet.

FS 2024, specially if added by asfs and realturb2 can do that for you.

Transition from water into terrain with thermal activity is rather perceptible.

3 minutes ago, jcomm said:

FS 2024, specially if added by asfs and realturb2 can do that for you.

Transition from water into terrain with thermal activity is rather perceptible.

I’m surprised it requires the help of third party products. Are you able to record a short video showing what happens when you transition from land to water and back again?

Just a reminder I was struggling to keep my DSLR steady such was the turbulence at no higher than 1500ft.

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The reason I gave the weather info is so users could setup a scenario to test what happens in the sim they use.

I simulated your flight in a Piper Arrow IV using P3Dv6 and Active Sky.  Turbulence and thermal effects in the sim enabled.  Active Sky Turbulence scale 100% and Turbulence Effect 75%.

Weather: Temp 26C, clear skies, pressure 30.06in, wind 080-150 at 10kts.

Left Hawarden at 12UTC on Sep 5, 2023.  Flew north at 1500ft to Liverpool, then past Blackpool, over the Lake District  at 8,000ft, then to Carlisle.

There was moderate turbulence after takeoff.  When I crossed the river south of Liverpool the turbulence dropped of significantly.  When I crossed over land again, the turbulence picked back up.

Again when I crossed over water further north at Moscombe Bay the turbulence was noticeably reduced.

When I hit land at the Lake District the turbulence picked up again.  I climbed to 8,000ft and still had some turbulence over the Lake District.

This seems to demonstrate that the sim does take into account the difference in turbulence over land and water.

Dave

8 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’m surprised it requires the help of third party products. Are you able to record a short video showing what happens when you transition from land to water and back again?

Just a reminder I was struggling to keep my DSLR steady such was the turbulence at no higher than 1500ft.

Only by the end of next week 😕  

On work travel until then 😞

Even without the aid of ASFS and RealTurbv2 it can do it, but it's not the same...

@dave2013, thanks very much for replicating my flight. 👏 It’s very encouraging to know P3D has the realism.

Any MSFS users out there who would care to try?