Local - Global : no weather in route

[Gregory Abbey]

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New fixes work great..

The new fixes in FSUIPC 3.1x have solved the VIS issues wonderfully that recently came up. A number of flights have been made with widely changing weather conditions and the horizon / memory / acceleration problems have not come back. { smile }

No weather in route

Today I made an IFR trip from the Mediterranean across France and into London.. a 760 mile flight over 2 hours. Taking off from LEMH.. the weather details were visible in Weatherset.. however when crossing into France.. no weather data was seen in the weather utility.. no temps - no winds - no pressure. The was no weather in the FS2002 scene either.. except the VIS which seemed work fine. No temps aloft or winds.. but lots of data was in the LOCAL menu of FS2002.. which I reloaded a number of times from MS. { very perplexing }

Stuck in GLOBAL over France

The several hundred miles over France showed `Global mode' the whole way.. and I futzed with ever possible setting and loaded real weather over and over. Finally when crossing the English Channel.. ICAO codes started to appear in Weatherset and temp/wind profiles came back as did pressure.

Captured screens

Here are a few Weatherset title bars clipped out to illustrate this as follows segments of the flight: 1) takeoff.. 2) climb.. 3) in route.. 4) descent.. 5) approach.. 6) landing as seen in the summary composite below.

Trying to understand

I'm trying to understand what's happeing with FS2002 weather.. is it the ICAO codes over France? Have read the FSUIPC doc.. especially the last section `More about FS2000/2002 Real Weather’ but things are not fully clear. Unfortunately a weather group in avsim.com was closed because of so few posts. Where does one go to discuss weather?? Not easy to find knowlegeable folks on this topic.

-Gregory

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[Frank.O]

Hi Gregory,

I'm not shure if I understand your problem right but there is something you have to know about weather in FS2002. There are two types of weather: localized weather ( wich is set for every weather station worldwide when you download real world weather ) and global weather (wich you have to set manually since it is not set when you download real world weather). The global weather area is a distinct area with the same characteristics as all the the local weather areas around every station with one big difference: it covers the whole world. Every time you fly into the range of a weather station that has not provided weather data FS2002 will display the weather in the global area. If no weather is set there no weather will be displayed.

I think this is the reason why the entire weather engine was changed in FS9. Global weather is not set by writing data into a global area anymore but by writing the same data into every weather station worldwide.

Hope this is of any use for you.

Regards,

Frank

[Highvolt]

I think this is the reason why the entire weather engine was changed in FS9. Global weather is not set by writing data into a global area anymore but by writing the same data into every weather station worldwide.

Dude, he's using FS2002...

I also find the weather behaviour a bit weird. I'm writing this external program for changing all the weather, and not all the settings from inside FS2002 are coming out properly.

It has a little mind of it's own in my opinion :)

Kind Regards,

Wim

[Pete Dowson]

the weather details were visible in Weatherset.. however when crossing into France.. no weather data was seen in the weather utility.. no temps - no winds - no pressure. The was no weather in the FS2002 scene either.

WeatherSet only reports whatever FS weather is actually seen at the aircraft, which sounds like was correct. Evidently you weren't in whatever triangle affected by the Local weather stations you saw populated. FS2000 and FS2002 weather is all triangles, fixed ones at that. There are some FS errors in those -- I know for instance that one of the vertices of the triangle affecting Rotterdam is down in Africa someplace! Gives weird results sometimes.

FS2004 is all different. Weather is affected by 30 or more nearby stations. It is much less predictable, and works well EXCEPT for wind directions which are sometimes all over the place. (They fix some things, break others :shock:)

I'm trying to understand what's happeing with FS2002 weather.. is it the ICAO codes over France? Have read the FSUIPC doc.. especially the last section `More about FS2000/2002 Real Weather’ but things are not fully clear.

Sorry, I've no idea. There was a map somewhere showing the FS2000/2002 weather triangles, so you could load up the WX file and check the weather at each of the vertices of the triangles through which you flew. You can also enable Extras logging in FSUIPC, as well as Weather, and that will list the three weather stations as you pass through.

I've really got very little hands-on experience with FS2000/2002 weather as I always used FSMeteo. Most folks got better results from using a third party weather program, and I could never recommend FS's downloads, at least not until FS2004 where they are much improved.

Unfortunately a weather group in avsim.com was closed because of so few posts. Where does one go to discuss weather?? Not easy to find knowlegeable folks on this topic.

I suspect most folks really interested in weather in FS2000/2002 used an external program, as I say. Too many problems and omissions with FS downloads, and, as you have found out, it reverted to Global whenever it thought there was nothing local, instead of interpolating.

Regards,

Pete

[Gregory Abbey]

Hi Frank..

Thanks for the info.. I think this FS2k2 weather can be out-smarted or at least analyzed to the extent that it can be made useable. The reason I'm concerned about the temp layers is because me and a couple other chaps have spent a lot of time making a new engine TBL set for the JT8D. Temp plays a roll in the thrust levels.. so (somewhat) accurate sky temps are necessary. Wind is somewhat important as well.. however the contrails are unaffected.

There are two types of weather:

localized weather: which is set for every weather station worldwide when you download real world weather..

global weather: which you have to set manually since it is not set when you download real world weather..

This definitly makes sense.. I've clipped it to a text file.

Every time you fly into the range of a weather station that has not provided weather data FS2002 will display the weather in the global area. If no weather is set there no weather will be displayed.

That's what's happening.. GLOBAL weather is being presented in the FS scene (which is no weather) std atmosph all the way up.. ie 15C etc.

I must tell you that while pulling the WEATHER menu down over France (where the default GLOBAL prevailed - nothing was rendered) the LOCAL weather was rich with temp and wind layers.. it was simply not being utilized. This is the issue.. what is stopping the LOCAL weather details from being involked? ICAO codes? hmm?

Here is an intersting scene for you to view.. a 2560 x 1024 screen cap of entering a LOCAL weather region south of London (the destination) whereas NO weather was rendered AT ALL over France.. despite LOCAL weather menu being rich with data.

:arrow: See this dual 21" view : 2560 x 1024 screen cap (1.2MB JPG)

In order to prove local weather was present but not utilized.. I'll need to fly it aGaiN and screen cap the weather menu dialogue box.. : )

-Gregory

[Gregory Abbey]

I also find the weather behaviour a bit weird. I'm writing this external program for changing all the weather, and not all the settings from inside FS2002 are coming out properly.

It has a little mind of it's own in my opinion..

Wim

:?: Is this to inject GLOBAL weather ? I'd like to set at least a `seasonal' temp profile into GLOBAL so that my engines see realistic OATs.

:?: Can Weatherset do this? Apologies but I haven't figured it all out yet.. : )

-Gregory

[Gregory Abbey]

WeatherSet only reports whatever FS weather is actually seen at the aircraft, which sounds like was correct. Evidently you weren't in whatever triangle affected by the Local weather stations you saw populated. FS2000 and FS2002 weather is all triangles, fixed ones at that. There are some FS errors in those..

Thanks Pete.. it makes sense.

I know for instance that one of the vertices of the triangle affecting Rotterdam is down in Africa someplace! Gives weird results sometimes.

The flight from Hamburg to London passes right nearby Rotterdam.. and I make that trip repeatedly. Sometimes the weather changes several times in one minute. Often it goes back to EHAM momentarily.. which is the departure airport. : )

departure from Hamburg, Germany with FSUIPC...

Another funny thing.. once out over the Channel.. the weather goes back to `all clear' so to speak.. like going to `GLOBAL nothing'. It re-appears over England. There isn't any weather over the oceans.. it seems.

There was a map somewhere showing the FS2000/2002 weather triangles, so you could load up the WX file and check the weather at each of the vertices of the triangles through which you flew. You can also enable Extras logging in FSUIPC, as well as Weather, and that will list the three weather stations as you pass through.

Ok.. will look into the logging feature.. now what about injecting a `representative' temp and wind profile into Global such as prior to departure?? .. so that at least there are some temps available when `outside the triangles'.. ie: FS goes weather braindead? :?

-Gregory

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[Pete Dowson]

Another funny thing.. once out over the Channel.. the weather goes back to `all clear' so to speak.. like going to `GLOBAL nothing'. It re-appears over England. There isn't any weather over the oceans.. it seems.

Correct. There certainly isn't if you use FS2000/FS2002 with FS downloads. the default Global weather it provides is basically - no weather.

And if you are really after realistic temperature gradients I don't think you can use FS2000/2002 downloads at all. Try FSMeteo.

[global]

what about injecting a `representative' temp and wind profile into Global such as prior to departure?? .. so that at least there are some temps available when `outside the triangles'.. ie: FS goes weather braindead? :?

Doesn't happen with FS weather downloads. The default global is part of the download. Your only solution is to change over to an external weather program, or move on to FS2004.

Regards,

Pete

[Gregory Abbey]

Correct. There certainly isn't { `any weather over the oceans' } if you use FS2000/FS2002 with FS downloads.. the default Global weather it provides is basically - no weather.. if you are really after realistic temperature gradients I don't think you can use FS2000/2002 downloads at all. Try FSMeteo.

Thanks everyone for the replies.. it's a valuable learning experience. There's a good chance that I'll be getting FS2004 as a holiday gift from my lovely CoPilot.. who bears Sim gifts every year at this time.. : )

Amusement

Now let's have some fun.. here's a screen clip from segment #2 in the above `title bars' graphic. It's looking `out the captains window' departing the island of Mallorca.. then ~150 mile leg across the sea to Spain. Notice the winds are zero here as when GLOBAL is in effect.

This is defined as the `rear view' { numpad 2 } where the angle has been carefully set to look about right. The port-side engine is just out of sight. It's my Boeing 727 aircraft!! :)

Keep up the good work everyone.. and enjoy!!

-Gregory

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