And I recommend that you use consumer Flight Simulators only for the procedural side of things (checklist flows, cockpit orientation, navigation etc.) and not for the physics of flying. That includes X-Plane. Only use actual real world student flights in a real plane for that. 
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Yep, Iām tracking all that already, but thanks for adding it for others who may not be aware.
Rest assured, after thorough research and thoughtful consideration, Iāve decided to focus on MSFS2024 for reasons that arenāt relevant on this thread. You can disagree with that, but do you have any thoughts on whether ASFS addresses ground level wind effects?
Does anyone have some input on whether ASFS mitigates the unrealistic ground winds?
I have ASFS and yes it has wind options (and effects) both for surface and aloft. But I do not if these would meet your needs.
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Generally yes. It does two important things.
It doubles the wind at ground level, and removes the baked in gusting effects that exist no matter what airspeed you are experiencing. This applies to both 2020, and 2024.
i havenāt retested this bin 2024 SU3, but plan to. If you look for posts of mine about ASFS, wind gusts, and baked in gusts or turbulence you should find some posts of mine with images charting wind speed over time.
I installed ActiveSky for FS2024, and Iām throughly confusedā¦
If I start a flight there are no clouds anywhere in the world. ActiveSky is running (I see it in the dropdown menu) but I have no idea what itās actually doing.
I know ActiveSky has āPresetsā but I want Live Weather, with enhancements to clouds, winds, turbulence etc. that AS (supposedly) offers.
In āCurrent Conditionsā I see three options:
- Live
- Preset
- Custom
If I select āLiveā it automatically switches to āPresetsā. I donāt want Presets. I want Live weather. I think they call it āPassive Liveā when ASFS is running. How do I get there? Or am I (probably) totally misunderstanding what āPassive Liveā means?
If I select āCustomā I see options for āLiveā, a bunch of Asobo presets, and ActiveSky Presets. If I select āLiveā in āCustomā there are again no clouds anywhere in the world.
Nothing makes sense to me. What am I not getting here?
I searched YouTube, and couldnāt find a comprehensive usage tutorial. HiFiās website is no help.
Active Sky uses in-sim presets to depict live weather, and they change based on your preferred download interval. I believe it has something to do with MSFSā weather API and the heavy restrictions, but rest assured the weather is live when you select the āLive Weatherā option.
If you are unfamiliar with ActiveSky FS, there are a few videos on YouTube that go through everything. This is the one I followed, and then tweaked it to my liking (the ASFS settings start at 17:00) https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XB-4tmnYCdI
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Itās finicky. I too often see only clear skies when using ASās live mode. I guess it has something to do with the API being restricted. When this happens, the only solution for me is to restart the sim and try again.
As for how to use live weather there are two options:
- Set the weather to live in MSFS and to āpassiveā in AS. The weather will look like it would in MSFS without AS, but AS will inject turbulence etc. in the background. Not a huge difference but I can definitely feel that thereās more turbulence compared to the vanilla weather, especially in airliners.
- Set AS to āactiveā and select an AS weather preset in MSFS. There are several, donāt know why and donāt know if there is any difference between them. It seems itās best to set all this up before starting a flight.
All in all Iām not overly impressed with the added values AS provides, but that is probably more due to the weather API being restricted than ASās functionality. Currently it all seems held together with duct tape.
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If I have time tonight Iāll rerun some comparative tests of ASFS vs Asobo in 2024, with regard to wind. The difference is huge.
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If you also have some tips on how to get AS live weather to work reliably, please do share! For me itās 50/50; either it works or itās clear skies everywhere in the world.
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Yeah, Iāve seen that too. Itās frustrating, and I donāt know what triggers it. If I see that I will post what the āconditionsā are here also.
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Before I begin my flight, I always ensure that the ActiveSky icon is showing under the in-sim toolbar, and then I click it to ensure that everything syncs up. That does it for me. I use 2020 btw, not sure if 2024 works differently.
Iām currently running a trace at KFFZ, picked specifically for gusty weather conditions:
KFFZ 021954Z 15012G24KT 10SM CLR 40/10 A2992 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT E SLP103 T04000100
The plane is sat in the middle of the airport, fully exposed to the wing.
I ran it for 300 seconds, looking at the ambient wind velocity in knots:
Then I ran the same five minute test, in the same session with ASFS enabled, in the preset mode:
What you donāt see are these huge swings in airspeed over very short period of time, sometimes just seconds.
I then teleported to somewhere with no wind at all, and found DNYO:
What I expect to see was that same repeating pattern in the Asobo weather, but this time scaled downā¦..except I didnāt. In havenāt tested this in 2024 for a while to it may have been either the release version or possibly SU1. What I saw back then was the same pattern, no matter how strong or weak the wind actually was. What I referred to as baked in gusts. But it looks like they may have actually removed that.
What do you set in the āFlight Conditionsā section after you select āFree Flightā?
Live? Preset? Custom?
Iām still having all kinds of trouble with this. I see AS in the toolbor, and can click on it, but all it seems to do is change the ambient sound around me (as though thereās an interaction with FSRealistic.)
There are still zero clouds in the sky at an airport that has clouds.
Turn off live weather in the Online settings.. Then, start AS first and wait for it to load. Then, start the SIM. Should be all set. Sometimes, I click the AS icon on the toolbar when my flight loads in just to be sure.
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How I set up Active Sky FS before each flight
First, I ensured that āasfsā is present in my Community folder (I use a symbolic linker tool so thatās why it appears as a shortcut). And donāt forget to manually start the app after starting the sim! I have it on my toolbar so I donāt forget.
Very important: make sure Active Sky is set to āPreset Controlā:
Then, I loaded into KLAX with live time and weather selected.
Open your Weather from the toolbar, and ensure it is set to Live. Then, youāll need to click once on the ASFS icon on the left (this may be hidden, so go into your settings tab and make sure itās set to āonā).
Youāll see the weather change, as long as your ASFS app is connected to MSFS (as shown in the top left corner) and the Live Weather Mode is active.
And this is how your Weather page should look after refreshing it:
Thatās really it; itās a bit more complicated than I would like but that is usually how it goes with the best series of FS to date 
EDIT: Also make sure that AS Wx Web Companion is installed on your PC.
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I ran another test, this time over a much longer period of time, data updated at 1 second intervals.
There was a blip part way through where the METAR updated from 7 knot winds to 9 knots. It doesnāt seem very gusty to me, not like it used to at least.
ASFS info below.
@POSPOS 022154Z 02009G15KT 10SM 41/09 A2984 RMK AS DEPICTED
(Cloned by: KFFZ, closest weather station when the aircraft was on the ground)
This station has complete visibility information. No interpolation needed
Altimeter interpolation based on:
-KFFZ 1nm NE (A2984), KIWA 10nm SE (A2986), KCHD 12nm SW (A2985), KSDL 13nm NW (A2988)
This station has complete Precipitation information. No interpolation needed
NOTE: Clouds, visibility and precipitation reported are the ones from the active cell weather
The last test I did was to switch from Active Sky Preset to Active Sky passive, and back came the gusting weather. That section is marked by the green box.
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Maybe thatās what Iām missing.
Once AS is loaded and the sim is in a flight, can you open the AS dialog (either by double-clicking on either the icon in the toolbar or the one on the desktop? I try but nothing happens.
Itās installed. Do I need to launch it? Or is it installed as a service?
I keep seeing āActiveSky Passiveā mentioned, but Iāve never seen the word āPassiveā anywhere in the AS dialog box.
Can you post a screenshot of where I can find that option?
Thanks.
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When you click on the AS icon in the toolbar, the little white dot means itās active, right?
Check if itās in your tray. ASFS has a āsend to trayā setting; you can toggle it off if that bothers you.
No, thatās it. Iām not quite sure why itās there, but the website says it has something to do with remote connection. Maybe youāll understand more of this than I , post number 7 on this page:
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/644147-activesky-fs-released/page/3/
No dialog box will open when you do that, but ASFS will immediately refresh the weather when you click that icon.
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