fsx weather realism overhaul?

[blazefox2]

after going up for my first flight yesterday in a C152, i recreated the flight on fsx. I must say it was quite dissapointing how little fsx replecates the movement of aircraft, and airflow/turbulence.

Is there an addon (payware/freeware) that overhauls the outside flying conditions, updrafts, downdrafts, turbulent patches better weather movements etc?

is rex what im looking for? or does that just change the textures?

[Tako_Kichi]

Accu-Feel V2 from A2A will allow you to do the things you mention along with a lot of other things too.

REX will enhance the weather visuals.

[jetstreamsky]

Active Sky 2012 http://www.hifitechinc.com/products/active-sky-2012

I've been using Active sky for many years now, with a brief excursion to REX, but I'm back to Active Sky which now has its own high quality textures as well as the superb weather engine.

It includes settings for aircraft turbulence effects and thermals, but for ridge soaring CumulusX is the best way to go working with AS2012.

NB: I've had to switch off the turbulence effect in Accu-Feel 2 as some models react very badly to it.

[Naismith]

I wonder do you have FSUIPC installed? There are settings within it to add enhancements of this nature.

[Kiwikat]

Accufeel + Opus FSX Weather has completely changed my opinion of FSX weather. It is astonishing how realistic the visuals are with Opus driving the clouds. It is much better than Active Sky, which I had been using for years. I'd highly recommend you give it a try. It is sold via the Flight1 wrapper so if you don't like it you can get your money back.

[PRB]

Does Accu-feel 2.0 add wind gusts appropriately, accoring to "real wx" data, or does it just add huge gigantic wind gusts at random intervals? Seems to me the latter... It's a fun effect, but what does it have to do with real weather conditions where you happen to be flying?

- Paul

[bstolle]

As you can't feel the effects of gusts and turbulence in a Desktop sim (and also not realistic in a multi million dollar motion sim) the whole discussion is useless IMO and there's no add-on that can change that.
There's simply no way to compare real flying to any kind of Simulator.
It's still a wonderful gift for me to be able to experience flight in a real plane :)

[MenendezDiego]

As you can't feel the effects of gusts and turbulence in a Desktop sim (and also not realistic in a multi million dollar motion sim) the whole discussion is useless IMO and there's no add-on that can change that.
There's simply no way to compare real flying to any kind of Simulator.
It's still a wonderful gift for me to be able to experience flight in a real plane :)

I agree, with one exception.

During my wee days of flying, I experienced a tremendous gust in the flare...nearly took me off the runway.

While testing the F-86, I was coming in for a landing, and I kid you not, a gust of wind shot me to the side.

Not sure if it was an actual FSX wind gust, glitch, or what. All I know is my stomach dropped, and it brought me back to that pucker factor day I had 3 years ago.

[stansdds]

I use Active Sky 2012 and Accu-Feel v.2. Active Sky is a much better weather generator than the stock FSX weather engine. Active Sky also brings it's own environment textures, which tend to be very nice. Accu-Feel does enhance turbulence and gusting effects as well as adding in additional sounds and tweaks to the handling characteristics of most aircraft. Accu-Feel is not recommended for use with Mil-Viz aircraft, they tend to have really good flight models and Accu-Feel can interfere with Mil-Viz's modeling.

[jetstreamsky]

I think i remember reading that the Accu-feel turbulence is an enhancement effect i.e. it relies on an underlying turbulence and scales from that depending on the slider position rather than a weather engine creating effects from a weather data source. It also takes no account of other traffic, unlike active sky.

[olderndirt]

To preclude turbulence and gustiness in FS, I have a gimballed beverage holder.

[Sascha66]

X-Plane has a more realistic flight model *Ducks for cover*:pop4:

[spotlope]

Does Accu-feel 2.0 add wind gusts appropriately, accoring to "real wx" data, or does it just add huge gigantic wind gusts at random intervals? Seems to me the latter... It's a fun effect, but what does it have to do with real weather conditions where you happen to be flying?

- Paul

Neither. As I understand it, it takes the existing turbulence & wind gusts and moves the aircraft in a way to better simulate its reaction to the weather. Watch some A2A videos if you're in doubt. It certainly looks more realistic to me.

[bstolle]

X-Plane has a more realistic flight model

ROFL

[JohnC]

One the items which is so frequently overlooked in the effects of weather are diversity of flight models produced by add-on developers. The damping coefficients in aircraft range from reasonable to absurdly high (as in orders of magnitude too high), but virtually never too low. Consequently, the 'average' requisite external force to induce deviations in the flight path (both translational and rotational) which are considered normal to the pilot are unrealistically high.

In slightly more technical terms, a first order (time derivative) of the displacement is the root problem and it's present in the average flight model (not the unchangeable structure of FSX). However, the practical or 'pilot's' measure of this error is the displacement itself. Weather programs (or the two payware titles I've tested) do not change the flight models (aka the homogeneous response), rather they adjust the driving force which is input into the system and attempt to fix the dynamic response.

Diego, on your comment about the MilViz F-86. Having worked side by side with Bernt many times (we swap between tester and developer on each others projects), I know we have similar modeling styles in which we both strive to use plausible coefficient values. The detriment to this method is that add-on weather packages, using the above method of increasing driving forces, create a huge response....which is exactly what you'd expect when all the math is considered.

The short story, for any of you still following this banter; The problem with turbulence lies much more in the average flight model and less so in the default weather engine. Weather programs simply apply an average change which in no way should be considered appropriately applied to all flight models. For those of you into photography, think of it like exposure compensation. Auto exposure systems are programmed to set the average light intensity to be neutral grey over a specific area, but that doesn't mean that gray on film is grey in reality.

[Bone]

There's simply no way to compare real flying to any kind of Simulator.


You are absolutely correct.




It's still a wonderful gift for me to be able to experience flight in a real plane

Yes, me too. Conversley, it's a wonderful gift to have desk top sims available at the level they are today.

[bstolle]

Conversley, it's a wonderful gift to have desk top sims available at the level they are today.

100% agree!

[Oelwanne]

Accufeel + Opus FSX Weather has completely changed my opinion of FSX weather. It is astonishing how realistic the visuals are with Opus driving the clouds. It is much better than Active Sky, which I had been using for years. I'd highly recommend you give it a try. It is sold via the Flight1 wrapper so if you don't like it you can get your money back.
I second that! I have bought OPUS FSX a few Days ago and the Results are fantastic. Overcast is now definatley overcast without the gaps that i always had with ASE. Its absolutley worth the money!

[Sundog]

One the items which is so frequently overlooked in the effects of weather are diversity of flight models produced by add-on developers. The damping coefficients in aircraft range from reasonable to absurdly high (as in orders of magnitude too high), but virtually never too low. Consequently, the 'average' requisite external force to induce deviations in the flight path (both translational and rotational) which are considered normal to the pilot are unrealistically high.

In slightly more technical terms, a first order (time derivative) of the displacement is the root problem and it's present in the average flight model (not the unchangeable structure of FSX). However, the practical or 'pilot's' measure of this error is the displacement itself. Weather programs (or the two payware titles I've tested) do not change the flight models (aka the homogeneous response), rather they adjust the driving force which is input into the system and attempt to fix the dynamic response.

Diego, on your comment about the MilViz F-86. Having worked side by side with Bernt many times (we swap between tester and developer on each others projects), I know we have similar modeling styles in which we both strive to use plausible coefficient values. The detriment to this method is that add-on weather packages, using the above method of increasing driving forces, create a huge response....which is exactly what you'd expect when all the math is considered.

The short story, for any of you still following this banter; The problem with turbulence lies much more in the average flight model and less so in the default weather engine. Weather programs simply apply an average change which in no way should be considered appropriately applied to all flight models. For those of you into photography, think of it like exposure compensation. Auto exposure systems are programmed to set the average light intensity to be neutral grey over a specific area, but that doesn't mean that gray on film is grey in reality.

This. I couldn't have said it better.

Also, so you guys think Opus is better than Rex? I may have to check that out.

[Oelwanne]

Yes, you definatley have to! I am Customer of HIFI´s Wheather Program since 2009., and OPUS is a hughe Leap forward. Much better than ASE!
Test it, love it, use it! You can download a Test-Version just to make sure you love what you get at: http://www.opussoftware.co.uk/opusfsi/downloads.htm