Lastly I’ve been dealing with some nasty gray clouds at the beginning of some IFR approaches. Every time I said to myself: in real life, I wouldn’t get into that monster, no way. During the cruise I was constantly monitoring the radar at skyvector and there wasn’t any indication of rain at the beginning of the approach, but in the sim I had such freighting big pyrocumulus. And obviously there is no way to determine the how badly the turbulence will be inside.
Searching info about IFR’ing into clouds with a GA (in my case a mod of taildragger C172 with a 210HP modified engine, enough for flying at 6000-10k ft) I’ve found this interesting post about this topic:
I found a some limitations in the sim at the moment:
Most of the clouds we can see in the sim are very similar, mostly cumulus, and very grey, very nasty. Although in the online radar services, like skyvector, they didn’t seem loaded of water, in the sim looks dangerous storms.
The turbulence close to the clouds is very light, so we don’t have enough reference about the danger of the situation.
I’m curious about how do you judge these situations flying our little GA. Do you fly into and start the approach (if the visibility min of the atis/awos report is ok) or would you prefer go to the alternative?
Assuming you’re flying Live Weather, Use Meteoblue Weather on the Internet and it’s various views, such as wind and cloud coverage at planned altitudes, to judge long range conditions on your intended route before flying.
In conjunction with the above, take ATIS readings at your Departure and Destination fields to get an idea if VFR landing will be supported by ETA.
While enroute, Certain Glass cockpit equipped GA planes in the sim have access to NEXRAD which can show you laterally where active cells are, keeping in mind that NEXRAD in real life is a slightly delayed mapping service, not real time. To that end, you’d use it in conjunction with visuals to stay clear of formations that present a WX hazard while airborne.
I didn’t know this Meteoblue cloud coverage feature. Very useful, thank you.
As we approach to autumn the weather starts to get worse. The airports usually are under IFR condition all the time (at least in the areas where I usually flight). Right now I mostly use that variation of the cessna classic without G1000 that I mentioned in my previous post. So when I start my descend toward an IAF inside those monster cumulus I feel insecure about how to proceed.
Maybe it’s time to back to the Caravan and the new WT implementation of the weather radar.
If you subscribe to Meteoblue you can use point in time clicking (meaning you can move through the time ranges of the day to see the cloud altitudes, etc…).
Personally, when the weather is bad or looks bad, I always cancel IFR and fly VFR remaining clear of clouds. As the seasons change, another danger lurks in the clouds, icing. Small GA aircraft are not certified for flying in icing conditions. Flying VFR avoids icing in clouds. I save IFR for clear days and nights and fog.
About icing: I usually check the radar layer and the one of Satellite IR4, that give you the temperature of the clouds, on skyvector. With that information I can speculate about what could find inside the cloud.
The problem is most of the time I find myself towards a very defined and fast developed cumulonimbus, although the radar in skyvector shows no rains and temperatures no less than 0ºC inside of it.
For now, as the weather engine is still being developed, I think the best solution would be keep to the whether radar inside of the sim instead of online services.
As of today in FS2020, flying into clouds as no impact at all on the aircraft (GA and airliners), turbulence into clouds are not simulated. An enhancement has been requested: Realistic Dangerous Weather - Physics Simulation
Are you sure? I’ve flown small aircraft into weather that is so unstable that the aircraft cannot be flown. I just go along for the roller coaster ride and hope my aircraft can take the stress.
Maybe this is because of the recent turbulence system implementation in SU10 beta (are you using SU10 ?) that are based on others factors than clouds. I don’t think those turbulence you are experiencing are generated by the clouds themselves.
I think I understand better what you are saying. I am still on SU9. I don’t participate in Beta testing because I did a lot of it in my previous life.
I think what you are saying is that the current weather implementation has clouds and turbulence separate when the clouds should determine the turbulence. Right?
I agree that the weather model needs improvement because it lacks wind shear, clear air turbulence, wake turbulence, and other things important to pilots.
Yes, that is what I meant. They are implementing turbulence but what I understand is that they are coming from Meteoblue data or terrain elevation and for up/down drafts calculated depending of terrain surface. But if you are flying into a type of cloud where turbulence should exist, this is not yet simulated.