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Monitoring Weather


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Hello again everyone

So having the perfect set up (PMDG 737NGX, SimBrief, Navigraph Charts, Active Sky Next and a plethora of scenery) I am really enjoying low cost operations across Europe.

 

There's one stumbling block however, and that's the weather. I just cannot predict it. I mean, it's accurate obviously as ASN does a great job. 

 

For instance, I tend to fly "in the past" but on the same day. For example if I was to set up a flight plan now I might fly a 0920 Manchester - Milan Bergamo under the real world flight number. I actually did this today. As I approached Milan it was evident that numerous thunderstorms were present. I imagine the real flight would have been held at a waypoint somewhere for the weather to pass, or even diverted. I then set up a positioning flight at 11:30 from Milan to Girona. I took off into the storms and had such severe turbulence I definitely would have been held on the ground in real life.

 

So is there something (I don't mind payware) that I can use to predict the weather? Something I can use preferably on another device as I want to use it "on the move" to look at destination weather, bearing in mind I fly historically by a few hours. Something akin to what ATC might have.

 

Thank you, i'm aware such a thing might not exist but I thought i'd ask the folks that know. 

 

 

Edited by Lukemeister
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I'm not clear on the question perhaps.

I also use ActiveSkyNext, I fly all over and usually choose the area I am going to fly based on the weather at the time. ASN is perfect for that. I "predict the destination weather" by scrolling the map to the destination, looking at the weather/direction it is traveling, note my time to target, and then "Predict/Guess" what it might be when I arrive.

 

I am not clear perhaps on your Flying out of sync with real time...I use ASN in Real Time Weather regardless of what Sim Time I fly in...which could be up to half a day off if I prefer to not fly at night in Tapini area to dirt strips with no lights...for example. But those are short trips where the weather isn't markedly different throughout the trips.

Do you set ASN to your Sim Time? Does it record/playback historical weather? If it does playback historical weather...can you set ASN to the Arrival time, and Look Ahead that way??? Never tried it myself.

 

Edited by Captain Coffee
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Sorry CC I have a poor way of explaining myself! I guess what i'm asking for is a sort of interactive map that would show the weather, windspeed and QNH for a specific airport. I have ASN locked to historical sim time, so that I get accurate weather for the time that I choose to fly. I've never really looked at ASN but with Windows 7 I can't swap back to the UI during flight as FSX seems to black screen and crash. 

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Plan_G will show both TAFs and METARs if you mouse over an airport, if that's the kind of thing you're looking for. It'll also include the data in a printed flight plan for any stations included in the route. But it is live data - getting historical data is somewhat more specialised.

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3 hours ago, Lukemeister said:

Sorry CC I have a poor way of explaining myself! I guess what i'm asking for is a sort of interactive map that would show the weather, windspeed and QNH for a specific airport. I have ASN locked to historical sim time, so that I get accurate weather for the time that I choose to fly. I've never really looked at ASN but with Windows 7 I can't swap back to the UI during flight as FSX seems to black screen and crash. 

 

I don't have ASN but make sure all the paths are correct in the options or settings. Also if it is like REX products you can set the date to past historic one to match the date of the flight you had chosen and all should be well. Is the ASN map crashing in both windowed and fullscreen modes?

 

I think you would be surprised what nasty storms pilots actually fly in too. If you can't go above the storm you can also ask ATC to allow you to deviate around the backside of a bad storm or if it is stalled you would be directed to an alternate airport. 

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Thank you for the replies Tim and Brett. I've dug a little deeper into ASN's workings. One thing I can do is export my SimBrief flight plan as a FSX flight plan and import it into ASN. This gives me a detailed report for both airports and every waypoint. The only problem is storing the METAR and actually learning how to read it, it's all gibberish to me! The only problem is I cannot update it should the weather change at the destination en-route.

 

 

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To avoid the black screen crash in FSX when switching to another application put FSX in windowed mode first, using ALT + ENTER.

 

ASN should provide all the info you need in the METAR / TAF format.

 

These web sites will help in reading and decoding METARS / TAFS.

http://meteocentre.com/doc/metar.html

http://sto.iki.fi/metar/

http://www.weather.gov/media/okx/Aviation/TAF_Card.pdf

http://www.para-excellence.co.uk/Taf Metar decode.html

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I have a few comments here and I am not sure if any are actually relevant but here goes anyways :) ...

 

ASN window/UI has a slide bar on the map functionality that can predict the weather - this is sometimes helpful. 

As with the crashing, try setting FSX to window mode and maximise the window (double click the top window bar) - then auto-hide the start bar and it's amost like you are at full screen. 

 

You can also use websites as stated above - these are very useful too. 

 

Another way is maybe tune the radio to the airfields ATIS and see what the weather is like there and then.

 

I would think that usually the flight planning and weather planning would be done prior to actually flying - then based on wind speed you can forecast where the bad weather is 'moving' - then you can predict a clear airport to divert to if it gets hairy over the airport you're planned to go into. 

 

I use ASN for all my weather needs - never felt the need for anything else tbh - hope you find the right mix of tools that does the job for your, everyone is different and prefer different things :)

 

Take care out there ;)

 

 

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It's worth learning how to interpret TAFs and METARS, partly because it gives you yelling rights at that idiot forecaster on the telly ("But the TAF's predicting hurricane-force winds at 3pm, you moron!!!")

 

The codes are fairly simple and you'll quickly learn that something like

TEMPO 1320/1322 1/2SM +TSRA OVC004CB

means "the airport is temporarily closed." 

(On the 13th, between 20 zulu and 22 zulu (8pm-10pm UTC) expect ½ statute mile visibility, heavy thunderstorms and rain, and thunder clouds (cumulonimbus = CB) down to 400ft)

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Thank you to everyone who has taken time to reply to my topic.

 

I think I have it sussed now - no need to use the flight plan function (it bases destination weather on the current sim time which is odd).

 

I just use the station weather feature. I can input my destination airport and read the weather for the current sim time (whether that be real time or more likely, in the past) and also forecast up to 8 hours in advance. Alt and tab works too. Have I got that right? If i'm flying "historically" at 9am today, ASN station will forecast from THAT time along as I have lock to sim time on?

 

The last thing to figure out now is how to decide what runway to use by using the wind direction, any help again please fellas? (I've actually learnt METAR speak which I found pretty interesting - it pays off to learn the real way for sure, so there is hope for me yet!)

Edited by Lukemeister
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I'm sure there is a math equation for it but I do it like this,

 

1. Where available Before you take off from your departure airport put the ATIS frequencies in your Com 2 radio of both the departure and arrival airports, once you use the ATIS to learn the takeoff runway you can always use the standby for something else like arrival ground. ATIS will always tells you the runway(s) in use.

 

2. For airports without ATIS someone gave me a tip once, on my kneeboard (one of those little spiral pocket pads)  I would draw a plus sign. Top of the plus sign was north and so on around east, south and west. Now draw the arrival runway(s) with a straight line through the center of the plus sign at the appropriate angle(s) and an arrow for the wind direction. This will give you a good idea on which gives you the least crosswind angle to the proper runway for landing.

 

3, Once I did that for awhile and got a better understanding of what was going on I use the heading indicator. If I am not using the heading bug for flight, I place it at the compass position where the direction of the wind is coming from and look at the compass face and imagine the runway('s) in my mind for the best one to use. If you have an HSI you can use either the heading bug or the directional arrow for this.

 

Note: If the wind direction is unavailable as in bush flying, you can try and find an airport close by that has ATIS to check wind direction or overfly the runway and check the windsock.

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