On Tuesday 15 June 2004 19:55, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > We currently have the ability to sync with real METAR weather reports as > we fly. > > I would like to propose that we set the default weather to zero winds, > zero turbulence, and maybe (?) zero clouds. > > Those that want interesting weather by default can use the METAR > fetching feature, and those that are trying out FG for the first time > will have fewer surprises. What do you think? > > Curt.
I mentioned once that I was seeing some strange jumps in the wind and visibility when I take off (from near 0ft alt airfields) and not using METAR weather - I wonder if some of the problems that some newbies experience might also be due to this. For example, sometimes I'm getting 6kt winds at ground level, when they should be 3kt and then quite often they're up to 30kt by the time I'm up to around 800ft agl. It doesn't seem to happen consistently but I'd guess it occurs about 50% of the time. Re-applying the weather settings via the gui will eventually sort it out but frequently, after re-applying the settings by clicking the 'Apply' button, and then clicking 'OK', the weather reverts back to the incorrect settings. Sometime clicking the 'Apply' button has no immediate effect and I have to click it many times before a change occurs and even then, it's not always to the correct settings. Just to confirm, I've been checking the settings in /environment via the property browser and I can see there that the settings are incorrect. If this were to occur to a newbie I can easily imagine them having trouble keeping the C-172 level as they transition from 6kt winds in one direction to 30kt winds from a different direction, and when it does occur the transition is pretty sharp. Apart from some modifications to the visibility ranges I'm using the current default weather settings. I haven't tried zeroing all the settings yet, to see what effect that would have. Re the clouds, I think it would be a good idea to keep the high-level cirrus - that's unlikely to cause any problems with a first time user and does break up the sky a bit. LeeE _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
