Fix the wind gust model

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1

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No

Brief description of the issue:

Wind gust modelling is currently extremely unrealistic. If you open the custom weather screen, click on a wind layer, set wind to 10 gust to 20. You will see wind reported as 10G20 in the top. Looking at the wind chart you can see that wind varies between 0 and 40kts. In reality 10G20 means that there is a steady wind of 10kts with gusts up to 20 (meaning maximum observed wind speed would be 20kts).

Gust is also impossible to set to anything more than 2x the wind speed (not sure why).

I believe this is also affecting live weather, where weather may be reported as 10G20, say, but then modelled as 0G40.

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2

I would like to put 100 votes to this bug. It’s the most annoying thing ever.

9 Likes
3

Take this sim pilots!
Wind Gust are really good at the moment!

2 Likes
4

The problem is not the feel of the gusts it’s their intensity. The bug is very transparent if you look into the custom weather screen and click on the wind layer, then scroll down and see the graphical representation of how the sim models the wind you selected.

A related bug is also that you can select gust that is less than the steady wind, which makes no sense at all.

My guess is that they misinterpreted what “gust” means and didn’t correctly map the reported weather to their internal parameters.

I’m also a real life pilot, and have flown in fairly windy and gusty weather. In the sim the other day I set wind to 10G20, right down the runway, and flew the approach in DA40 at 80kts approach in clean configuration. Clean stall speed is just under 60kts. Gusts were so strong on the approach, at 80kts indicated, I had to perform stall recovery due to the gust. Looking at the custom weather wind chart, it’s clear they modelled it as gusts up to 40kts, which explains what happened.

7 Likes
5

is it in the maximum allowed gust of DA40?

6

There’s no such thing as maximum allowed gust. There’s maximum demonstrated crosswind (but which also is not a limit). Wind of 10G20 is not uncommon in reality and reasonable to fly in especially if down the runway.

4 Likes
7

In the first video he doesn’t use live weather, so it’s pointless.

3 Likes
8

why is it pointless?

9

yeah i was not finding the word “maximum demonstrated crosswind”…
Do you fly the DA40 IRL?
I heard that the gusts are really good atm
Not perfect but the best we had in this sim

10

Because in live weather, gusts are abnormously too frequent, while in manual weather you can set the number of gusts per minute.

9 Likes
11

I fly C172, PA28 and DA40. I mean the gusts feel right in terms of aircraft behaviour, it’s just the way the gusts are represented in the custom wind layer looks wrong. I suspect they use the same method for translating live weather into the sim model. Wind gust is defined as the maximum wind speed observed over a certain period and must be fairly short in duration. That’s not what we see in the sim. We don’t need to rely on opinions about this because the way the wind is modelled is something the sim tells us in the wind screen. It’s also impossible to set the gust to be higher than 2x the wind speed for some reason.

1 Like
12

Tested that in live-weather. That “issue” is only in custom-weather. I think they make it that to simulate the friction layer that makes the air slower near ground. If METAR reports 10G20 thats the wind we get in live-weather. In custom-weather they add a gradient that makes the wind be double around 500FT above ground. At ground it’s what you set it to be in custom-weather.

13

There seem to be two separate bugs here.

One is that on CUSTOM weather, the winds range from normal to twice the selected gust strength (or as indicated by the OP)

Another is the frequency of gusts in REAL WORLD weather, which is much too rapid and constant to be believable and causes violence upon a plane unlike it normally encounter IRL.

Capn. Randazzo of PMDG mentions the 737 autopilot having to be retuned (presumably away from Boeing specs) in order to cope with the unnatural winds of MSFS, about which he tried to contact Asobo to provide guidance on the matter but was not able to reach them.*

*see: [13OCT22] Updates Published to Update PMDG 737 for MSFS Product Line - PMDG Simulations

It is obvious that there is something wrong with the new gusts system. And increasingly it becomes apparent that there is more than one way this manifests itself, with quite different results (possibly from different causes) between RW and CUSTOM weather modes.

This is a rather major issue. We’re seeing developers having to go out of their way (and perhaps against reality itself) so airplanes can handle these most unnatural conditions.

Let it be clear beyond any doubt: These gusts are NOT realistic.

In RW wx, they are too fast shifting and too frequent. There is almost no more clean air. (except at night when the system becomes artificially quiet)

In CUSTOM weather, there are the bugs pointed out here by the OP, which have been stated clearly enough.

Please refrain from derailing yet another attempt to get this message across with claims of “maybe it’s too hardcore for you” and such petty grasps for some pointless sense of superiority. It’s not about easy-vs-hard. It’s only about it being realistic. Which as of now, by error of exaggeration, it is not.

22 Likes
14

The thing is, they don’t need to change the gust system in live-weather much to make it realistic in my opinion.

I think both you and i have described the thing that is missing.

I’m using su11 beta and will messure and see if something has been tuned in those gusts to be better.

1 Like
15

Thank you for this. I’ve seen so much of such useless commentary within discussions of wx and turbulence, it makes me question people’s ability to comprehend what they’re reading. They funnel all nuance into a dichotomy of turbulence vs. no turbulence, and are so fogged by this interpretation they fail to see the message as anything other than, “I want to take your beloved turbulence away.” I have seen nobody argue for an absence of weather.

There is something very wrong with the sim’s current real world weather; gusts are too frequent and regular in almost any derivation of weather, regardless of severity. The gusts are so rhythmic, I’ve learned to time them when flaring an aircraft for landing.

18 Likes
16

I’m confused on how the gust system works and my google search took me here. is the wind gust model currently broken or is it working correctly. i’m confused because I have it set to 4 gusts per min but as you can see in the graph it’s more like 15-20 gusts? can someone help explain whats happening here

image

2 Likes
17

Yes in custom-weather it’s opposite. If you set gust per minute higher you get less frequency.

18

It looks quite broken indeed. I suspect it’s also related to what we see in real weather. I wonder if they take the wind and gust number and input it into a wind layer that looks like this custom wind layer to get the in-sim weather.

19

ok thanks for confirming. wasn’t sure if I was just interpreting it wrong or if there were indeed issues.

20

I’m having the same issue and its taken the fun out of flying small GA planes.

My theory for what the problem is; the small GA planes appear to have no mass and/or friction (resistance) in the physics calculation for when being affected by the wind and is being pushed around like paper or a kite instead of a 1 ton (2300 lbs) airplane.

This is especially apparent for the pitch movement. Flying the 172 (G1000) with 10 Kts gusting 20, the plane would quite violently pitch up or down 5-10 degrees. Its more akin to someone overriding my control movements than an external force pushing the against the airplane surfaces.

EDIT with examples:
MSFS 2020 - real world weather. 10kts wind gusting 20kts. Please note the wind indicator on the G1000.

My IRL in similar conditions in the same spot:
Taken in my little Grumman Traveler on a hot day with 10kts wind gusting about 20kts. I’ve disabled stabilization on the camera to “fix” it like the camera in MSFS; Note how the nose “sways” side to side rather than violently change direction especially the pitch. Its much easier to trim her out and “ride the waves”, whereas in MSFS is jerky and impossible to trim.

Oh and as an interesting comparison; When I turn on the stabilization, this is how it feels for the passengers.

14 Likes