Damian Clark

There's a few areas where simulators can really help supplement real flight time and/or training. IFR procedures, and associated buttonology (when accurate) for example. I've used a certified SR22 FlyThisSim setup (on X-Plane) on many occasions to maintain proficiency and even currency (with and without an instructor present, since the rule change). During IFR training, it was also a big help that definitely accelerated things for me. Practicing hold entries, complicated procedures and the like were very helpful and much more affordable on the sim to work on. Of course, real time is important and can't replace sim time, but the sim time helps strengthen confidence, knowledge and technique. You can also practice things in the sim you can't (or shouldn't) in real life. You can do all this in FS2020/FS2024 too (uncertified of course). For VFR/PPL, there are also some supplemental benefits, but as many instructors agree, it can be a negative.

Suggest you open a ticket at https://parallel42.jitbit.com/tickets/new for help on this!

It's been released for FS2020, and it works great with ASFS!

ASFS changed to fixed aspect ratio in order to avoid stretching, since the map display design is fixed at around 4/3. We are hoping to improve this in the future.

We have an early test version with SU2 compatibility available for those who'd like to try. See https://forums.hifisimtech.com/threads/msfs2024-su2-compatibility-test.15547/

Update: The new build has a fix, that fixes one part of things, but we are now having new problems. ASFS still SU2 incompatible for now. We're investigating. More updates soon.

There's a known issue with SU2 beta, should be resolved in the next SU2 beta build. For now you can go back to SU1/official or wait for the new build.

To summarize: SU2 UI HTML/JS code is refactored/redone in several aspects and this breaks a few things such as View Listener registration (including Weather Listener), which makes any HTML/JS mod that uses such listeners incompatible with SU2. ASFS and the other weather add-ons are some of several that won't work on SU2 until this is fixed (there are also some internal panels that are broken due to this). The issue has been reported and confirmed/logged, and we are awaiting a fix from MS/Asobo. Given that this breaks backwards compatibility of many things, and Ms/Asobo are pretty good at fixing these kind of issues as they come up, we are very hopeful that this issue will be resolved, hopefully by the next SU2 beta build.

No, this has been reported (by me) but I haven't seen any others even mention it on the official forums. It has been confirmed to affect real MSFS weather too (at least in some cases). So > 150 is just not possible consistently in MSFS apparently, and when you try (by forcing via preset weather) it drops wind speed to zero. As always, I ask those who want this 150 knot limitation in MSFS removed to speak up in the official forums. My sole bug report isn't going to do much.

For me, when I sim, I'm not looking at scenery in general. I appreciate challenge, realistic weather, obstructions to visibility, etc. Most of what I do when I sim is practice challenging IFR procedures and approaches, and the worse the weather, the better. I'm nearly always looking for areas I'm not familiar with that have hard IFR down to minimums. I want it as realistic as when I do it in real life, ideally. Apparently I'm not alone in the way I sim, but of course there's lots of kinds of simmers and ways to sim! I built AS originally (27 years ago now?) for me to practice IFR procedures more realistically, and while of course we've tried to cater to all kinds of simming/simmers, there is certainly a core focus on realism and challenge in AS DNA. Anyway, regarding turbulence, are you referring to ASFS or MSFS in general? I'm assuming MSFS. We have heard lots of complaints about MSFS turbulence which is why we invested a lot of time on ASFS turbulence as well as the available options to get any kind of experience you're looking for (for example you could turn it way down). Anyhow, MSFS turbulence (especially FS2020) has been explained with terms such as as robotic, constant, static, unrealistic, etc. We recommend using the lowest internal turb setting in the sim (LOW) so ASFS turbulence mostly entirely overrides the effect. Without AS, or some other turbulence effect add-on, you'll get the undesirable MSFS turb effect only.

Yes, this is just how non-unlimited visibility (realistic in most cases/conditions) is depicted. You can affect the visibility experience using the various ASP3D visibility options. Please see the user's guide and readme pertaining to this. Max upper vis for example can be set to 200 to allow for unlimited (also force minimum vis high, to ignore computed lower vis conditions, if you'd like).

As explained in the response to the support ticket you opened last night (thanks for that BTW), the ASFS weather map is a summary of weather limited by resolution, is intended for flight/weather planning and general weather summary, and is not supposed to be a detailed radar showing detailed cloud positions around you. ASFS does not include detailed radar. We've been advocating for the ability for FS2020 and now FS2024 to allow weather radar functionality (that would enable such detailed radar). Perhaps they will add that in the future, and if so, we plan to take full advantage of it. For conditions comparison, we recommend using the conditions page (no code entered) to get a detailed accurate representation of the intended depiction at the aircraft position, along with the data that shows why we decided to depict that way (interpolation sources, grib sourcces, etc).

No, METAR changes themselves do not trigger cloud updates, the system works much differently than that. It's per periodic update interval, and that is smoothed unless you trigger an update manually/change an option, or have some kind of conflict with another weather add-on. We offer comprehensively controlled preset weather control with smoothing, and we have many more features than just changing the way clouds are depicted. It's not for everyone, but for many, they appreciate and support ASFS, and use it regularly, for many reasons. We understand many really dislike us, our product, our existence, and the idea of any kind of weather add-on at all. The regular ASFS critics are already commenting. But, reality is, many feel differently, and actually do appreciate what we've done, and what we're doing. Imagine that.

To each, their own 😁

Awaiting the ticket, I don't see anything yet. Feel free to send me the ticket number in PM. You haven't provided any information showing any discrepancy, only that you expected one thing and got another. There could be lots of reasons for that. But we don't have any open issues like this, so it is likely something setup wrong, or perhaps misunderstanding of what is being presented. For example, we get many reports of "weather is wrong as reported" when the user has enabled offline/historical mode but expects live weather. Or when user looks up weather for their destination airport instead of local area, and they are still 200 miles away, wondering why the weather doesn't match in sim. That's just two of several dozen common things we see all the time. Without more information, there is no way to help here but if you want help, feel free to ask for it and I'll do my best. I can assure you, we aren't making any money selling ASFS. it's been a long time since we've seen any profits (years). We would have abandoned it long ago if we only cared about money. Reading your post, it sure sounds like our product is very bad and we are bad company who only wants to "sell its product". Neither is true.