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Altitude


Donald Stimson
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Donald Stimson
Posted
Posted

Hi Ross, 

Is there anywhere to follow the status of your work to adjust airplane altitudes resulting from the MSFS implementation of the effect of non-standard pressure gradients on airplane true altitude?  Or do we just wait until a new version of vPilot is issued?

Thanks.

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Ross Carlson
Posted
Posted

I'm not doing any work on vPilot currently. My understanding is that there is still a bug in MSFS that affects the altitude variables returned from the sim via SimConnect, so there's no point in doing anything with it right now anyway.

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Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Donald Stimson
Posted
Posted

Oh, darn it, I wasn't aware of that. I guess you could still work on the algorithm assuming the bug in the altitude variables is fixed, but may as well wait. Do you expect them to let you know when the bug is fixed, or is it something you are going to have to keep tabs on yourself?

(I thought your proposed solution for making the true altitudes consistent across the different sims looked very good and can't wait to try it out.)

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Ross Carlson
Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Donald Stimson said:

Do you expect them to let you know when the bug is fixed

They'll let us all know through the usual list of fixes/improvements they publish with each release.

Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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  • 2 weeks later...
Scott Heinz
Posted
Posted

I sure hope this gets fixed in the September FS2020 update. I have tried to do several VATSIM flight, but my reported altitude is always 500 to 1500 feet different with the correct altimeter setting. It's a bummer.

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Jose Gentile
Posted
Posted

Good evening Ross

I read your post in MSFS forum. That was an excellent explanation.

I got your point of the TCAS issue between one aircraft using MSFS and another in XP/ P3D.

But i remain with one question. To the point of view of the controller (VRC/Euroscope) are we allowed to use live weather in MSFS? Are those controller going to see us in the correct altitude/FL?

Best regards

 

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Ross Carlson
Posted
Posted
40 minutes ago, Jose Gentile said:

are we allowed to use live weather in MSFS?

I haven't seen any official prohibition statement from VATSIM, so I would say yes.

40 minutes ago, Jose Gentile said:

Are those controller going to see us in the correct altitude/FL?

If the temperature is non-standard ISA, then the controller will see you offset from your indicated altitude by some amount.

Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Alexander Cohrs
Posted
Posted

Maybe we need to implement an auto disconnect function in the pilot clients for aircraft reporting a wrong altitude for more than, let's say, 20 seconds? 

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  • 1 month later...
Donald Stimson
Posted
Posted

Supposedly, MSFS pressures and altitude have been fixed now in SU6. Is that what you are seeing, Ross, and will you be updating vPiilot accordingly?

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Ross Carlson
Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, Donald Stimson said:

Supposedly, MSFS pressures and altitude have been fixed now in SU6. Is that what you are seeing, Ross, and will you be updating vPiilot accordingly?

Unfortunately, it's not a simple change ... have a look here for a lengthy explanation:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/vatsim-ivao-pilotedge-users-be-aware-of-an-important-bug/426142/363

I can't say when this change will happen, since it is a major update that will require cooperation among multiple pilot client developers, and possibly also server-side changes.

Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Donald Stimson
Posted
Posted

Thanks for the response. I am fully aware of the complexity of the issue. (I'm AwarePlot 17729 in that forum.) I was hoping that since the MSFS side appears to have been completed, then this process could be started on the pilot client side, especially since you laid out the basic solution over 2 months ago.

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Ross Carlson
Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Donald Stimson said:

especially since you laid out the basic solution over 2 months ago

Two months is a blink of an eye. :classic_biggrin:

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Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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  • 1 month later...
Reinhard Ziegler
Posted
Posted

Thank you @Ross Carlson for your posts over at the fs.com Forum and thank you for seeing MSFS pressure and altitude system as the future!
This is why I left IVAO two years ago and joined VATSIM, 'cause IVAO had the mindset to better not support new technology and new sims in favour of backwards compatibility to FS2002.

VATSIM appeared much more future oriented to me when I took the decision to change my online network and I've not been disappointed (and you contributed a lot to this feeling, Ross!).

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Ross Carlson
Posted
Posted

Glad to hear it, thanks Reinhard.

Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Vincent Koeman
Posted
Posted

Just to check, MSFS users are still showing up at wrong altitudes on the VATSIM controllers' radar scopes? And are they just 'dealing with it' at the moment now, as I haven't heard this from the controllers all these months? Or did they apply some workaround in those clients?

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Piotr Urbankiewicz
Posted
Posted (edited)

I had this issue yesterday. I have flown EHAM - EPWA on A320 FBW mod with STD pressure set and altimeter 37000 ft on my autopilot but Vatscope has been idicating 35500ft. Also Bremen Radar controller asked me to change my QNH to 1013 and when I replied to him that I have Std set he just say "Ok" so I think he was aware of the issue.

Edited by Piotr Urbankiewicz
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  • 1 month later...
Michael Nikel
Posted
Posted

Good Day everybody,

is there any Update to this issue? I am recently using the MSFS a lot and it is very annoying when you don't know if ATC sees you on the correct Altitude on their scope. Also i got a lot of discussion about it because many Controllers are not aware of this issue. I even heard, that somebody was forced to disconnect due to this bug.

How should we, as a Pilot, deal with Situation?

Greetings
Michael

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  • 4 weeks later...
David Leitl
Posted
Posted

Issue is still there... had it on a VFR flight yesterday, indicating 4.000ft on current QNH 1032 and ATC had me at 3.700ft on their scope.

MSFS 1.22.2.0

vPilot 3.2.0

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Roger Hanson
Posted
Posted

Maybe this has fixed it in MSFS 1.23.12.0 issued today at 1600z

Fixed QNH altimeter in live weather

Regards, Rog Hanson

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Scott Heinz
Posted
Posted (edited)

Unfortunately the issue is still present even after Sim Update 8 in FS2020. Bummer.

On 2/28/2022 at 12:49 PM, Roger Hanson said:

Maybe this has fixed it in MSFS 1.23.12.0 issued today at 1600z

Fixed QNH altimeter in live weather

 

Edited by Scott Heinz
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  • 5 weeks later...
Michael Flemming Hansen
Posted
Posted
On 3/7/2022 at 10:01 PM, Scott Heinz said:

Unfortunately the issue is still present even after Sim Update 8 in FS2020. Bummer.

I can confirm that. I have a current flight going where I am at FL380 according to my display, but VATPrism reports me at 37126ft, so definitely not fixed. I tried to manually set my altimeter so it matches what I have in VATPrism, but it shouldn't be necessary.

Cheers,

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Ross Carlson
Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Michael Flemming Hansen said:

I can confirm that. I have a current flight going where I am at FL380 according to my display, but VATPrism reports me at 37126ft, so definitely not fixed. I tried to manually set my altimeter so it matches what I have in VATPrism, but it shouldn't be necessary.

I'm not sure about VATPrism, but if it's like VAT-Spy, it is showing your true altitude, where controllers see your pressure altitude, when you're above transition level. So you should not expect the two to match, unless the local sea level pressure is 29.92/1013.

And even if the local pressure is standard, MSFS simulates the effects of non-standard temperatures on the pressure lapse rate in the atmosphere, so the two will still not match. This is a feature of MSFS, it is not a bug.

Read the long post that I made in the MSFS forums for details on how this feature affects us on VATSIM. I'm currently working on the workaround described in that post.

Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Magnus Meese
Posted
Posted

Don't know if it's the right thread, but I had two separate situations with two different aircraft pairs on CTP, where each pair indicated (in ES) and reported to be two or three thousand feet apart, but had visual and/or TCAS warnings of the other being (close to) same level. Is there any compensation done via VATSIM data servers, which is only applied to some servers? In both cases one of the two were using MSFS, the other not.

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Ross Carlson
Posted
Posted (edited)
28 minutes ago, Magnus Meese said:

Don't know if it's the right thread, but I had two separate situations with two different aircraft pairs on CTP, where each pair indicated (in ES) and reported to be two or three thousand feet apart, but had visual and/or TCAS warnings of the other being (close to) same level. Is there any compensation done via VATSIM data servers, which is only applied to some servers? In both cases one of the two were using MSFS, the other not.

That's a side effect of this very issue. If the two pilots are flying in different temperature conditions, the true altitude where they see each other (and where their TCAS sees each other) will be very different from their indicated altitudes, and you can get these TCAS warnings. It doesn't have anything to do with the servers, it's just an unfortunate result of mixing different sims with different altimetry simulation models.

I'm currently working on the workaround I described in that long MSFS forum post.

Edited by Ross Carlson
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Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Magnus Meese
Posted
Posted

Thanks

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