volkand

@FBW737, @jcomm, You're fully right with your observations. I also hope that ASOBO/Microsoft will enhance the atmospheric behaviour of MSFS for soaring in the future. The ridge soaring works pretty well, maybe in the USA ridge soaring is more popular than in Europe or Australia. The thermals are a real mess. Also the tow plane C172 is far from real life, at least in Europe, where strong motor gliders or Robin DR400s are popular tow planes. Even if "Condor" is a benchmark for the behavior of thermals coming close to reality, for me, the instrumentation/equipment of the gliders and the availability of scenery/landscape of the region to fly in is of major importance for glider training. For P3DV5 I use the following setup for soaring: https://fsglider.de/ current and historic gliders with real life equipment "netto" vario, MacCready support and navigation computer by Ian Lewis (B21) http://luerkens.homepage.t-online.de/peter/ CumulusX! Thermal creation depending on landclasses, indication by circling birds and clouds in different stages of their life cycle, ridge lift depending on slope of mesh scenery and wind conditions. For soaring in MSFS SU11 I currently use (my favorite glider is the AS33me): https://flightsim.to/file/15090/as-33-me open class glider, Alexander Schleicher (MADoloSimulations, Ian Lewis) https://flightsim.to/file/27986/rolladen-schneider-ls4 standard class glider (MADoloSimulations, Ian Lewis) https://flightsim.to/file/25518/discus-2c-glider# Schempp-Hirth (GotFriends) https://flightsim.to/file/34815/schleicher-k7-glider Alexander Schleicher (GlideSimmer67, Ian Lewis) https://flightsim.to/file/30384/dg-flugzeugbau-dg-808s open class glider (TouchingCloud) https://flyyourselfvrsim.uk/content/thermals/generator/ Thermal creation for selected regions in CVS-files for upload to kinetic-assistant; For a soaring contest the same thermals can be loaded on different PCs https://msfs.touching.cloud/mods/kinetic-assistant/ Winch lift, tow planes DR400, DA40 flying along predefined tracks, upload of thermals as CVS-files; Indication of thermals in MSFS and monitoring in a separate window including centring support; https://xp-soaring.github.io/tasks/b21_task_planner/ planning of flight tasks (Ian Lewis (B21)) for AS33me navigation computer and XSoar. The task can be stored in different formats for dimulators. In MSFS such a task is loaded as "Flight Plan". Using this setup, the soaring conditions in SU11 are a mixture of ridge lift and thermals created by MSFS and thermals loaded by "kinetic-assistant". The thermals processed by "kinetic-assistant" are more realistic, they can be bumpy or smooth, they even may kick you out at the edges. "kinetic-assistant" still works in SU11, but the lift off can be weary, since AS33me has its own winch lift, MSFS tow planes interfere with those of "kinetic assistant". In the "discus-2c" the built in winch lift can be switched off. But with a little practice it works. In the "aircraft.cfg" files of the gliders above the entry: ui_typerole="Aircraft" needs to be changed to ui_typerole="Glider" since SU11. In addition you can use LittleNavmap https://albar965.github.io/ to navigate/track your flight on an "open-street-topo-map". "LittleNavmap" is very useful for ridge soaring using the topo map and for your current VFR navigation around airports, which are quite dense in Europe (two monitors are needed to do that). Kind Regards, Volker

@lwt1971, @arneh, @jcomm, great posts! I fully support your observations. As Arneh mentions to use MSFS as a training tool for the airclub, here are some links to "real life" gliders for MSFS. All of it is freeware. https://flightsim.to/file/15090/as-33-me https://flightsim.to/file/27986/rolladen-schneider-ls4 Both gliders are equipped with total energy varios - also including MacReady support, developed by Ian Lewis (B21, he creates soaring instruments for gliders starting with FSX). There are YouTube videos created by Ian Lewis (B21) explaining the instruments quite comprehensive, look for "youtube b21 gliders". I expect you know both of them, the AS33ME is modelled as a high-performance 18 meter flapped glider including a self-launch motor, built-in winch launch, water ballast, and a comprehensive racing instrument panel. Both still work in SU11, but need to be adapted. I expect that the development team will do it soon. Yesterday I had a "ridge soar" flight from LOIR Reutte (Austria) to LSZS Samedan (Switzerland), using the AS33ME. This one still has good flight dynamics in SU11. There is also a browser based soaring task flight planner developed by B21 (Ian Lewis): https://xp-soaring.github.io/tasks/b21_task_planner/ You can create gliding tasks, including "Start", "Finish" lines, to train competitions. The tasks can be exported/downloaded in various formats, e.g. to import them as "flight plan" in MSFS. XSOAR Navigation, is a tool for smartphones and Windows PC/Laptop, which can be connected by LAN/WLAN to the B21 Navigation-Computer of the AS33 (link above) and "kinetic-assistant" (link below) - both is optional https://xcsoar.org Up to SU10, I used "kinetic-assistant" for winch launch and tow plane lifts, which both worked quite realistic. In addition "thermals" could be loaded up to SU10 to cover a certain region to fly in. Thermals can be indicated by birds or "coloured spirals". Up to now, I coud not test it since its built in "Simconnect" seems to be broken since SU11. https://msfs.touching.cloud/mods/kinetic-assistant/ Hope this is useful, especially for the soaring pilots around here. Kind Regards, Volker