Comments on: The Weather Report

By: haryo

haryo — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 02:18:13 +0000

Coming back again to Xp after a few months and I have yet the feeling to leave again. Since I have started with XP10 cloud flickering and other problems/bugs still persist. Thumbs down dear devs.

Here one fred of endless ones: https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/225235-cloud-flickering-and-flashing-in-vulkan-any-similar-experiences/

And your X-Plane Feature Requests & Suggestions is now a private space. LOL.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 09:30:30 +0000

In reply to Eric. Yes.

By: Ulrich

Ulrich — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 17:06:32 +0000

I think the true problem with real weather that there is no offical public API to get the data. So if you have something that works, it may break any time (due to server changes). The other thing is a number problem: I guess the NOAA is not ready for serving thousands of requests per minute or second even. Thus the LR proxy.
Regarding FORTRAN: Maybe some AI can translate it to something reasonable like C…
For the files: Maybe replace the message saying when the file(s) were downloaded with a message saying how old the data inside is.
Despite of all that I was surprised how LR managed to get data out from files that weren’t expected to be used that way IMHO.
X-Plane 9 had also suffered from NOAA changing the interface…

By: Arno

Arno — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 05:25:15 +0000

I think it should be possible to simulate turbulence:
-wind >15 kts below 200 ft
-tops of clouds
-thermals below and inside cumulus
-layers with large wind gradients (edges of jet streams)
-lee side of mountains with high winds

By: Sudipta Singh

Sudipta Singh — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 13:48:31 +0000

In reply to Paul McCarty. :-) For a “ dinosaur language” it is still in the top 10 langauages used today !

By: Dan Mesmer

Dan Mesmer — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 17:40:31 +0000

Re: Fortran

Both Fortran and faxing should have been considered “obsolete” before the end of the last century. Nevertheless, there are reasons why they both persist. As long as they persist, frustration about their persistence will persist. Occasionally, I still get a request to fax something. Although that irritates me, I understand that such requests are going to continue for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for not requiring me to fax this reply.

By: Tom Knudsen

Tom Knudsen — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 14:26:08 +0000

Question, when is it time to stop repairing the trusted old Buick and look towards the future and perhaps invent or implement the next cool and efficient thing. Kinda miss progress when it comes to X-Plane. I have no clue how difficult it is or how costly such is to invent, but I cannot believe in these day an age there is no tech out there that will deliver a realistic weather and turbulence model, did not Austin make one for XAVION? Anway, I read above certain things are planned and guess that resides to the next version. In other words isn’t it time for a new Q&A stream? Perhaps a streamed Teams meeting where you guys geek out on new tech ideas? Anyway, thanks for all your dedicated work, repairs and tech feedback 🙂

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 07:11:21 +0000

In reply to Ben Supnik. Are you guys going to keep us hanging till Sept since Flightsim-Expo has been rescheduled?

By: Carl

Carl — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 03:20:25 +0000

I suspect that you’re going to have to migrate to a SADIS or WIFS (https://aviationweather.gov/wifs/products) data source in order to regain the blended product you’re after, and I’m sure a decent case can be put to NOAA to give Laminar Research access to WIFS data.

To be quite honest, the direct WAFS, GFS, GDAS data really aren’t meant for guesstimating flight / simulated flight operations, hence the managed solutions that SADIS and WIFS provide and then a variety of flight planning toolmakers regurgitate.

For example, an aviation provider in Australia may be using AirServices products, JeppPlan, or a variety of other planning products, each of which is ultimately deriving a blended solution from WAFS / GFS data (via SADIS / WIFS, or their own hand-rolled solutions out of SADIS / WIFS data). AirServices will lean heavily on the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for product, but they are using WAFS / GFS in conjunction with local observation and specialist knowledge to derive the same sort of product everyone else is getting (SIGMET, Grid-point forecast, Area forecast, etc).

Having seen the mess where people actually try to flight plan for real off WAFS estimates, I’d strongly recommend the WIFS solution. WIFS will also give a variety of charted products that can be digitally integrated / presented to improve the realism of simulated flight planning cycles (and resulting simulated flights).

By: Steve.Wilson

Steve.Wilson — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 03:02:49 +0000

Wow. Welcome to LR, Paul! Great read… I wish I could complain, but in between flight plan load tests and debugging code, using LR served weather is the least of my worries. Quite the adventure – Indiana Jones would be proud!

Just glad to read something from the new guy, and that brings a good weather report of another kind. And glad too of Ben’s “yes” and that he’s seen what the lads and lassies over a Eagle Dynamics have done with their atmospheric phenomenon. 😉 And I do remember Fortran. And card punch machines. 😀