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Flying with real world weather in MSFS on VATSIM


Peter Matthess
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Peter Matthess
Posted
Posted

Hi Folks,

 

Once Asobo tweaks their coding so that we can fly on VATSIM smoothly, I'm looking forward to getting online. But one of my friends pointed out that the 'live weather' that you get in MSFS is not taken from airport METARS, it's taken from another source which doesn't always match up properly with what airports are reporting. Is there, or will there be some sort of function to be able to 'inject' VATSIM weather data into the sim rather than use the native MSFS 'live weather' function? Much like in Active Sky where you can go into the options and tick the 'vatsim weather' box for flying on vatism.

 

Regards,

-Peter

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Koen Meier
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Posted

What you need to understand is that asobo uses a custom weather model which doesn’t rely on metar data. And metar data is just an observation of the past 20min, some cases 10min, before publishing. We have to wait and see if there is any weather addon coming.

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Peter Matthess
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Yes that makes sense. i see the difference, hopefully asobo's custom weather model is good enough or close enough that there's not a big difference between the two, it's just my friend had said he'd gone for a flight and began comparing the airfield METARS with what he was seeing and it was significantly different, so I thought I'd pose the question,

 

Thanks,

-Peter

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Enrico Gallesio
Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Peter Matthess said:

my friend had said he'd gone for a flight and began comparing the airfield METARS with what he was seeing and it was significantly different

This seems a major issue for online flying. What about different wind components between MS and Vatsim for choosing active runways?

When vatsim-msfs2020 compatibility upon release was so enthusiastically announced, I thought this kind of issues were already sorted out...

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Peter Matthess
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I agree and share your concerns Enrico!

What are the communities thoughts on this?

 

-peter

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Diego Vasquez
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Posted (edited)

People have been flying with greatly varying levels accuracy in weather sync for years, many factors including VASIM client, sim capability, addons, different settings and configuration from all of those... This is an issue but I think mostly at the individual level; if ONE cares about weather accuracy. 

Just as an example: I remember that nasty FSInn weather engine bug with the PMDG 737 that killed engine performance at high altitudes, forced people to tone down weather sync. Was that an issue? only to that person.

 

I agree somebody will make an add-on that will address this.

 

BTW: The human aspect of observational METAR and the difference in diligence on updating METARs accross countries and airports is an issue even in the real world. I.e, assuming that FS2020 weather is reasonably matching real world weather, the only thing you need to do is follow real world METARS and ignore the game ATC info.

 

 

 

Edited by Diego Vasquez
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Enrico Gallesio
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48 minutes ago, Diego Vasquez said:

People have been flying with greatly varying levels accuracy in weather sync for years, many factors including VASIM client, sim capability, addons, different settings and configuration from all of those... This is an issue but I think mostly at the individual level; if ONE cares about weather accuracy. 

I don't think weather accuracy is a marginal aspect, and it's not just wind for active runways, it's also QNH to separate flight levels... It is true this happened before, but that mostly depended on a particular addon and if you wished to revert to IVAO/VATSIM weather compliancy you could always just deactivate your addon.

I am fully aware that MSFS2020 weather system is a whole new world, and that's one of the revolutionary aspect it is bringing in the flight simulation (and that we were still eagerly waiting for) but I still think there should be a way to provide external weather to being able to integrate with online flying platforms, expecially when Microsoft itself announced with great fanfare a VATSIM compatibility.

Sure, maybe it's just a matter of time, and someone will address this, but I feel like this should've been addressed during development.

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Peter Matthess
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I think the most important point for me is when a controller gives you a runway to land on, and a wind speed/direction, if its completely different you can't land on that runway with a 15knot tailwind if the controller thinks its actually a side or headwind. it kind of breaks the whole point of the online virtual world if its all different for different ppl. its one of those things where we are just going to have to manually plug in the wind into the weather settings before we land and take off or something like that until we get a weather addon

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Richard McDonald Woods
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Using METARs to determine real-world weather at your destination is always your responsibility. If you feel that ATC is using a different weather, you should notify him and state what are your concerns. It is the responsibility of ATC to add to your safety, not subtract from it.😊

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Cheers, Richard

You are the music, until the music stops. T.S.Eliot
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Eric Fisher
Posted
Posted

Metoblue from what I understand uses forecasted data from surface to aloft for wx data. Many in other forums are complaining that while they have sunny skies were they are at, they are seeing overcast. There are many examples of this occurring. So while MFS has their custom wx model, it appears the wx model data is fed forecasted data and not real time data. Hence why it's not accurate. If accurate, this will not work for many, myself included. I know I will wait for HiFi prior to even touching real time weather.

Eric

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Diego Vasquez
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Posted
8 hours ago, Richard McDonald Woods said:

Using METARs to determine real-world weather at your destination is always your responsibility. If you feel that ATC is using a different weather, you should notify him and state what are your concerns. It is the responsibility of ATC to add to your safety, not subtract from it.😊

Good point.

How do you query sim weather at the destination in MSFS2020 besides in-game ATIS?

I was always confused about that in both FSX and more recently P3D.

 

 

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Eric Fisher
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For those wondering about Activesky, CEO Damian Clark posted on another forum the MFS SDK has them locked out from doing anything with the weather. They do not know when/if it will happen.

Eric

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Richard McDonald Woods
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Posted

Diego,

I simply use a browser query of, for example, METAR EGLL.

Cheers, Richard

You are the music, until the music stops. T.S.Eliot
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Peter Matthess
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7 hours ago, Eric Fisher said:

For those wondering about Activesky, CEO Damian Clark posted on another forum the MFS SDK has them locked out from doing anything with the weather. They do not know when/if it will happen.

That's very interesting. I guess it makes sense if Microsoft has 'contracted out' the handling of the weather simulation to someone else, that person has asked for exclusivity - and Microsoft has locked out devs from messing with the weather as part of the agreement! Let's hope we get more control over the weather going forwards. I'm very interested to get on vatsim when the stuttering is fixed and test out just how different the weather might be to what the vatsim controllers report.

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Koen Meier
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7 hours ago, Eric Fisher said:

For those wondering about Activesky, CEO Damian Clark posted on another forum the MFS SDK has them locked out from doing anything with the weather. They do not know when/if it will happen.

do you have the link? would be nice to readd it.

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Diego Vasquez
Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Richard McDonald Woods said:

Diego,

I simply use a browser query of, for example, METAR EGLL.

Yeah, well... what i meant is to be able to query SIMULATOR weather at the destination.

Again, if we assume that whatever Asobo/MS is doing reasonably matches with your favorite Internet METAR source then it doesn't matter.

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Peter Matthess
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Ive just been trolling the Microsoft forums for this topic and haven't come up with anything conclusive yet. But I'm essentially just interested in flying on vatism with 'real world weather' engaged in the sim and being able to reasonably expect what I'm seeing and feeling to be similar to what VATSIM controllers expect me to be seeing/feeling. Would be good if Microsoft added more options to the weather where we were allowed to plug in our own METAR data or 'VATSIM weather' or 'IVAO' or whatever. Depends how flexible they are going to be to user feedback. One can hope.

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Eric Fisher
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19 hours ago, Koen Meier said:

do you have the link? would be nice to readd it.

It's in that multi page thread about live weather at Avsim. Not sure what page it's on.

Eric

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Diego Vasquez
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Posted (edited)
On 8/21/2020 at 5:51 AM, Peter Matthess said:

Would be good if Microsoft added more options to the weather where we were allowed to plug in our own METAR data or 'VATSIM weather' 

About "VATSIM weather", If true that the current SDK is blocking weather API then we're stuck, but...

 

Unless I am mistaken, not even on P3D/FSX vpilot tries to insert VATSIM weather today ?

 

Edited by Diego Vasquez
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Koen Meier
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4 minutes ago, Diego Vasquez said:

About "VATSIM weather", If true that the current SDK is blocking weather API then we're stuck, but...

 

Unless I am mistaken, not even on P3D/FSX vpilot tries to insert VATSIM weather today ?

 

In active sky there is a setting which matches airport weather to vatsim atis. Vpilot doesn’t inject weather to my knowledge.

 

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Don Desfosse
Posted
Posted

Correct.  vPilot does not inject weather.

Don Desfosse
Vice President, Operations

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Lance Williams
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I admittedly haven't read the responses to this post, however MSFS's response to the "concern" with their "Live Weather" is alarming. It sounds like they have some nerd programmer who has convinced Asobo/MS that they don't need METARS to produce weather. Their own, unique algorithms will do a much better job. Problem is, they aren't even close to real world conditions. If they had some super-special-awesome weather prediction system they would have already put every single meteorologist out of work! They need to stop this BS and implement real world observations - - AKA METARS!

Thank you,

Lance W.

ndbair_logo_150.png

Hundreds of Real-World Airlines and Routes for you to fly at www.ndbair.com

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Alexander Cohrs
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Uh, MSFS2020 pilots online at VATSIM with a totally different ground speed on approach than the rest of the world? Doesn't that sound like the need for forced disconnects via the pilot client? 🙂

 

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Robert Shearman Jr
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I get the joke, but, no.  off by 2x the surface wind velocity is not the same as off by 50% 😉

Cheers,
-R.

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Bill Casey
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FYI, the QNH is not a problem. Judicious use of the B button will show you at the correct altitude on the radar screen. Not terribly realistic pressing B but if dialling in the QNH that ATC gives puts you at the wrong altitude then B is a more practical option.

It's always been that way since there's never been a guarantee that your aircraft's QNH matches ATC's, with things like AS then they usually agree but they may not in which case a quick B sorts it out. The B button has been carried over into MSFS fortunately with their dodgy weather system (which is currently a bit rubbish).

Bill Casey

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