Wind shifts with 4.20

[Pete Dowson]

So, all in all, this is looking incredibly good. 4.235 (or later) on Thursday night.

Thanks! Pleased it is looking so good now! I'm working on the dox updates, hoping to get a proper user release out this month! ;-)

Pete

[Bill Casey]

I havn't yet tested this with ASX though, do you want to wait for that before a pukka release just to make sure? I'll get that one done on Fri/Sat if the 4.235 test on Thursday is another good one (with the fixed dll.xml :oops: ). I'd really like to do one in the LDS 767X too, just to make absolutely sure that we're cooking on gas!

[Pete Dowson]

I havn't yet tested this with ASX though, do you want to wait for that before a pukka release just to make sure?

Of course! I'm not freezing the code yet, just preparing. Whilst a lot of things look good, the few remaining problems do seem to be associated with ASX's type of weather setting. I'm sure it's not a "fault" in ASX at all, it is just that it seems to be able to produce weather scenarios which are prone to the problems I might not have managed to solveyet.

I'll get that one done on Fri/Sat if the 4.235 test on Thursday is another good one (with the fixed dll.xml :oops: ). I'd really like to do one in the LDS 767X too, just to make absolutely sure that we're cooking on gas!

Yes, great. Thanks for all your efforts on this.

Regards

Pete

[Bill Casey]

Morning guv,

Well I sneaked in test with 4.236. Same flight, 747X, same FSUIPC settings (all suppressed, smoothing on) and FSX download weather.

Excellent News: No FS crash so either my dll.xml fix worked or something that you did worked! I still reckon it was the dll.xml last time though.

Good News: Very smooth flight (spookily smooth actually) with very consistent winds and pressures but then it was relatively stable high pressure over N Europe yesterday. On both climb and descent I went through layers of Turb at 2 or 3 with a bit of bumpyness, no losses of headings so the suppression is still working. In the cruise it was sooo smooth that for 10 minutes I turned all smoothing and suppressions off and nothing happened at all!

Strange News: On departure at Oslo I was not getting their current weather, in fact no weather at all with the exception of a repeat of the extremely high temps on the ground at Oslo (+45C in Feb?!). I suspect that there's a problem with the ENGM source of FSX downloads. Apart from the high temps it was 0 wind and 1013mb QNH. Next time I'll switch logging on at that point just to double-check what's going on. I do know however that the downloads are working since on arrival at Glasgow the weather was spot-on with the current Metars.

Potentially odd news: I spotted some dodgy looking layers en route, well below me but noted them anyway. Screenie below and I have a log running at this point as well if required. You can see that something odd happens between FL170 and FL240 but since I didn't climb through that I didn't get any effects from it. The layers do seem well separated though. I don't recall seeing any funny narrow layers. At the moment of the screenie I was cruising at FL360 and the wind was spot on. One thing that was noticeable was that at FL360 the TAT's were remarkably warm, never dropping below -23, whereas you'd normally get a heck of a lot colder.

Overall another excellent result!

[Pete Dowson]

Strange News: On departure at Oslo I was not getting their current weather, in fact no weather at all with the exception of a repeat of the extremely high temps on the ground at Oslo (+45C in Feb?!). I suspect that there's a problem with the ENGM source of FSX downloads.

I think there have been previous reports of problems with FSX's Scandinavian METARs -- a temperature of +65C was reported I seem to recall. Bad data no doubt.

Potentially odd news: I spotted some dodgy looking layers en route, well below me but noted them anyway. Screenie below and I have a log running at this point as well if required.

No, not required, thanks. I know FSX generates lots of spurious layers. This is the cause of all the problems we've been battling. It was actually pretty similar in FS9, but I had a lot more control there as I managed to suss it out (but it cost me many thousands of hours and I won't do it again).

Thanks!

Regards

Pete

[Bill Casey]

Excellent Pete, in that case tomorrow I shall do the same flight yet again but with ASX in the mix :shock: That one promises to be quite entertaining, if there are any particular settings you want me to try then give me a yell.

[Bill Casey]

I will now confess to being a tad confused! Having read the other threads ref Acceleration and SP2 I am wondering why the smoothing has been having such a stunning effect for me when I don't use Acceleration, just vanilla SP2?! Also many of the testers who have been using ASX have reported big problems but you'll see below that I didn't find this.....

Anyway, prior to reading all those posts I did a test with 4.239 and ASX last night. A pretty hard-nosed test it was too! Settings as before: all smoothing on, turbulances suppressed. ASX smoothing off. Prior to this test I'd done all mine with FSX own weather so this one promised to be interesting! I flew Keflavik to Birmingham simply because the current weather at BIKF could only be described as "violent"! Winds 140 @55 gusting 75 and using Rway 11. ASX allied with 4.239 rendered this absolutely perfectly, taxiing was hard work, take off was very sideways and well bumpy on the way upwards, no sign of the PMDG losing it's heading despite that massive wind and turb. I was more than impressed.

Cruise was fine, a bit of TAT movement but nothing nasty, pressure surprisingly quite stable. No strange layers seen below me at all. One major achievement is that prior to these beta versions of FSUIPC I'd always had problems with ASX not giving me accurate winds and pressure for the destination until almost at touchdown but last night was wonderful, once within about c30 miles I was getting the QNH spot on and the winds as per forecast. Perfect!

I am more than happy with this now. The only slight question mark was that I was cruising at FL370 with wind 206/12 but the layer above (38327) was showing 192/12 and the layer below (33999) was showing 165@21 so I was a fair few degrees beyond them both. Strange but not really a problem.

I note the request to stand down for now and await further orders!

[Pete Dowson]

I am more than happy with this now.

Interesting that you are not getting the ratcheting and other symptoms of the SIM1.DLL "hack" not being applied. Can you please look in any of your FSUIPC4 Log files and see if it says the Wind Smoothing is "fully" or "partially" applied? It'll be a line near the beginning.

The only slight question mark was that I was cruising at FL370 with wind 206/12 but the layer above (38327) was showing 192/12 and the layer below (33999) was showing 165@21 so I was a fair few degrees beyond them both. Strange but not really a problem.

WeatherSet shows the weather last reported to it by SimConnect. Sometimes there's a bit of a gap between those reports, so it could have been a time lag. Also remember that WeatherSet is showing degrees True whereas the Shift+Z and ND displays Magnetic.

I note the request to stand down for now and await further orders!

I uploaded version 4.241 in the wee hours this morning. That should give you the full smoothing no matter what version of FSX you have! ;-)

So, go ahead, please try and break it for me! ;-)

Thanks & Regards

Pete

[Bill Casey]

Hmm, curious, it does only say "partially installed" yet I'm delighted with the results. I get bigger and nastier wind changes with FS2002 than I'm getting with this! Still, no matter, I have another new version to assault this afternoon :twisted: .... that's if I don't watch the rugby and drink beer instead :D

[Bill Casey]

OK, 4.241 is very good. One long 747x flight with the smoothing thread on (same other settings - all smoothing, turbulances off) and everything went fairly tickettyboo. I'll switch it off for tomorrow's flight but I'm very confident of excellent results. The only ripple this afternoon were slightly more excited TATs than of recent versions even with temp smoothing on, they were hopping up and down in fairly significant chunks but again nothing violent enough to cause a real problem. Smoothing thread off tomorrow and away we go :)

[Pete Dowson]

The only ripple this afternoon were slightly more excited TATs than of recent versions even with temp smoothing on, they were hopping up and down in fairly significant chunks but again nothing violent enough to cause a real problem.

FSUIPC's temp smoothing tries to control the OAT. The other factors involved in computing TAT might be the ones actually doing the jumping anout.

How many degrees per second do you call a "significant chunk" by the way?

I have OAT displayed on my PM gauges, but I suspect that's missing on most.

Regards

Pete

[JSkorna]

Hi Bill,

I need you to drop me an e-mail: jim@hifisim.com

Thanks!

[Bill Casey]

The only ripple this afternoon were slightly more excited TATs than of recent versions even with temp smoothing on, they were hopping up and down in fairly significant chunks but again nothing violent enough to cause a real problem.

FSUIPC's temp smoothing tries to control the OAT. The other factors involved in computing TAT might be the ones actually doing the jumping anout.How many degrees per second do you call a "significant chunk" by the way?

I don't even pretend to understand the links between OAT and TAT but I do know the effect it has on Mach numbers and the autothrottles! In terms of "chunks" the TATs were shifting between -25C and -40C, smoothed to an extent (again, way better than previously) but sharp enough movements of +/- 5C at a time to cause Mach numbers to go from 0.82 to 0.86 in a couple of seconds thus causing a bit of surging/dropping of the engines. Not violent though, just enough to make me notice and I have a log of this phase of flight if it's any use. I do realise that you can only go so far on that aspect and quite honestly the effect is so much better than it was that I can quite easily live with it as it is now. On my next test with ASX I'll increase the OAT smoothing parameter a bit since I'm certain that that'll fix it.

[Pete Dowson]

I don't even pretend to understand the links between OAT and TAT but I do know the effect it has on Mach numbers and the autothrottles!

...

On my next test with ASX I'll increase the OAT smoothing parameter a bit since I'm certain that that'll fix it.

Well, since air compressibility comes into it I suspect sudden changes in pressure could also contribute. Did you have the pressure smoothing enabled too?

Regards

Pete

[Bill Casey]

I don't even pretend to understand the links between OAT and TAT but I do know the effect it has on Mach numbers and the autothrottles!

...

On my next test with ASX I'll increase the OAT smoothing parameter a bit since I'm certain that that'll fix it.

Well, since air compressibility comes into it I suspect sudden changes in pressure could also contribute. Did you have the pressure smoothing enabled too?

Yessir, I've kept that on throughout my testing. The only difference this time was that it was my first test of your betas with ASX so that added another variable to the pot and to me it's a question of getting the two playing nicely (which they so very nearly are). Pressure didn't seem too variable but that's a factor that I wasn't looking for, I'll run the same exercise again later, increase the OAT smoothing and keep a closer eye on the pressures to see if I can spot a common factor. My 747X also has an OAT meter so I'll watch that more closely as well. It is only a minor wrinkle in my opinion and doesn't cause major issues for me but of course what to me isn't a big issue may easily be described by someone else as a "huge variation and significant surging"! I'll try and remember to turn off the smoothing thread this time as well.

[Bill Casey]

4.241 with LevelD 767X, all smoothing on, all turbulance suppressed, smoothing thread OFF. Using ASX (wind smoothing off). Flew Glasgow-Stansted in order to get a fair few changes of weather station on the way down and all in all a thoroughly pleasant flight with some nice slight bumpy stuff in the Lorel hold. Basically nothing to report :D Next time will be the 747X on the same flight, same settings and see if there's any difference between the two.

Next time I'm passing Stoke I'm going to buy this Dowson geezer a jolly good lunch!

[Pete Dowson]

4.241all in all a thoroughly pleasant flight with some nice slight bumpy stuff in the Lorel hold. Basically nothing to report Next time I'm passing Stoke I'm going to buy this Dowson geezer a jolly good lunch!

Thanks Bill. Better drop me a note so I can tell you where to pick me up! ;-)

Regards

Pete