ATC / ATIS / AWOS What is it going to take to put it right

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This thread is a DISCUSSION… Please do not move it to any Bug area— (waste of time)
Community needs to fix it themselves – been over a year now, and Asobo shows no sign of doing anything about it,

What is it going to take to fix the ATIS / AWOS reports.

Currently, they

  • Report the wind direction as True (Not Magnetic)
  • Report the wind speed in ft/sec !! instead of Knots

These are just simple units changes – should take all of 30 minutes max to fix !!

Been like this from Release time – and does not seem likely to change – who listen to the weather, or ATC in any case !!!

So, once again, its up to the community to fix it themselves, if they want it fixed.

It is NOT fixable with the US - Metric - Hybrid setting – In fact, it makes no difference – maybe this is the cause of the Bug.??

Anyone any idea how to MOD this to report in the correct units ??

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And within seconds, a LIKE from a Real World Pilots … :+1:

I am glad I am not the only one that had had enough waiting for this to be fixed, and feel the need to just 'get it done" with a MOD .

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My best guess is that if this was moddable it would have been done already – I’d think the playerbase would have totally overhauled the ATC system by now if that logic was exposed. I’d love to be wrong about this.

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The biggest killer is wind speed units.

Interestingly, at my airport, when I’ve bothered to check, ATIS winds usually match METAR wind directions. I’ve never asked the controllers about it (who record the ATIS tracks). I asked an instructor during one of my reviews, he didn’t know.

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Unless you mean moddable by users, Just because it’s an easy fix does not mean it will have made its way down the priority list at Asobo. It takes time to make any change, and they have “limited” resources. And, that’s not just developer time and testing time. There are other people who have to touch every change that goes through as well.

So unless it’s made the task list, or some rogue developer at Asobo decides to go in and look it (which from the sound of things has been a source of bugs in the past), just because it’s easy does not necessarily mean it gets done. And I don’t blame them. Engineering is engineering and there’s a process, or the code would be a LOT worse than it is.

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Yeah that’s what I meant.

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I believe a few have edited the ATC file, to improve what the ATC says

ie en-US.loc.Pak

In this file, there are lines, typically

"ATCCOM.ASOS_MESSAGE.0.text": "<agent_airport> Automated Weather Observation, <time> zulu. Wind: **<wind>**. Visibility: <distance_visibility> <visibility_add>. Sky condition: <asos_cloud>. <thunderstorms> Temperature: <temperature>C. Dewpoint: <dewpoint>C. Altimeter <altimeter_agent>.",

The construction of the <wind> token would appear what needs to be edited, so that it generates the wind Direction as Magnetic, and the Speed as Knots.

Anyone any idea where <wind> is constructed ???

(Note Had to quote the above text so that < wind > ( without spaces) displayed in the post

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Amazed at the lack of apparent community interest in this – so much for a Community of SIMMERS.

Maybe its that simmer realize that this is not going to be fixed any time soon, so why even bother discussing it , and Gamers don’t care, as long as the sim looks “Pretty” ?

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Also ATIS should be updated to GRF regarding Runway Condition Report (RCR) including Runway Condition Code (RWYCC), coverage, depth and type if contamination.

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As far as I can tell the wind direction is actually magnetic in the ATIS. The actual wind is copied from the METAR without correction for variation :expressionless:.

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I’ll check again, but I am monitoring the simvar “ambient wind direction”, in deg magnetic, on my Stream Deck, and the value there always seem to be off by the magVar,
Difficult to really tell, as ATC and ASOS only give wind to the nearest 10 degrees ?

The direction from which the wind is blowing is reported to the nearest 10 degree increment (e.g., 274 degrees is reported as 270 degrees). Wind direction is reported relative to true north in the METAR/SPECI message, in the daily/monthly summaries, and on all video displays.
Wind direction is reported relative to magnetic north in the computer-generated
voice messages, and on the OID “AUX” data display screen.
See section 3.2.2.1 for details

ref https://www.weather.gov/media/asos/aum-toc.pdf Section 3.2 WIND

then –

METAR winds are true and ATIS winds are magnetic, except Digital ATIS.

Digital ATIS ???

SO anyway, its probably not going to be addressed anytime soon, and that just the way it is, so no point in getting all worked up about it – just play the game and buy more MSFS “STUFF”.

At least nobody can blame pressures on getting the sim updated for the “TOP GUN” release, looks like the movie release has been put of still further to at the earliest July 2022.

I accept that I am just totally confused, and leave it at that …

confused

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That could very well be, the actual wind is just copied from the METAR without correcting for magnetic variation. If you compare the actual wind in the sim with the in-sim ATIS, the different is exactly the MagVar.

ATIS received via datalink.

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You have way more understanding than I do but this has explained some of my confusion with differences I’ve been seeing.

Sometimes it makes the runway choice a little confusing when there is no ATC.

I mostly stick with Sky4Sim since they report millibars and in Hg, which matches the instrumentation in my airplane.

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Maybe the simmers have already given up on the default ATC. It has bigger problems than a wrong ATIS, and until it’s completely overhauled, I see no point in using it when there are already better solutions.

Have you tried Pilot2ATC for example? You might like it. There’s free demo.

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