I was pretty shocked that MSFS broke the MS tradition of setting a visibility range for IFR conditions, while all other modern and heritage simulator platforms are capable of that.
I tried to practice zero-zero situations and CATIII ILS landings but I didn’t manage to limit the visibility to a realistic or exact level. It seems like there is no exact setting for fog like on other platforms. Fog is just rendered as clouds, but there seem to be no rules for visibility.
Are you planing to change that? I find this as licensed pilot quite disappointing to miss such a feature in a simulator which claims to have a certain level of realism. It’s limiting IFR capabilities dramatically.
Yes, I tried that, doesn’t give any useful result. The horizontal visibility is even with highest settings way to far. ILS conditions with zero visibility aren’t doable.
While Prepare3D, FSX and even FS2004 allowed to set visibility to exactly 200, 400 or 1000 ft FS2020 doesn’t allow anything like that.
Training or simulating IFR conditions are therefore pretty useless in this simulator. While VFR works great, I’m wondering how Adobo plans to implement FS2020 as professional platform for training purposes, this seems to be quite an obstacle.
I train myself with IFR conditions and CAT-III autoland even when it’s clear sky and calm winds… Lol…
Where did you get this idea from? I’m pretty sure professional platform for training purposes has a specialised supplier that airline and flight schools have a deal with that costs $10,000 to purchase.
Why would Asobo wants FS2020 to be used for professional platform for training purposes, with a $100 software? that doesn’t make business sense.
Prepar3D also has a cheap consumer license and it’s still used as platform for flight schools due to it’s customability. Anyway, that’s not the topic here.
I think a modern simulator should be capable of simulating zero visibility when it was possible with all other and even old platforms years ago.
P3d by itself isn’t used in training. Schools may have P3d and hardware combinations certified by the FAA, but just using it at home is different.
But I’m really splitting hairs here and has nothing to do with the OP main point. I understand what the OP is trying to say; that fog is well represented in P3d.
I’m aware that in certain situations the visibility might be quite limited, but the issue is that there isn’t a slider which provides control for that.
Looking at the screenshots on the runway it’s still showing a few hundred ft, as far as I can judge.
An older video also shows the issue with maxed out cloud settings. As you can see the runway is perfectly visibility a few hundred ft before landing:
Here again during day, 3/3 cloud layers all with 100% settings in 0 - 4500 ft. You can see almost spot the end of the runway:
CAT-III and Autoland are two separate things though. When skies are clear its not a CAT-III approach, just autoland. Only thing required is for ATC to keep the ILS sensitive area clear.
This is something that has really bugged me ever since this sim launched. Yes, fog is well-rendered based on METAR now, but why can’t I set a visibility value in manual weather? It’s such a basic function of any flight simulator. And remember, just because you can’t log the time, that doesn’t mean there isn’t significant IFR training value in this software. Procedures practice, keeping your scan sharp etc… the sim is very good for these things. It would be much better if you could specify a vis value to ensure that you broke out right at mins, or never did break out, depending on training desires.
A workaround for lower vis btw is to incorporate precip. Max out a rain layer and you’ll have very low vis indeed. But, how low exactly? No one knows, because we can’t specify it. This really needs fixed.
To me this subject (visibility) is the only thing that needed to be changed, textures aside, in the old weather system. Instead there was a lot of clamoring for METAR based weather and we have what we have now. Sad.
The ‘fog’ in SU7 did help but often visibility is too ‘good’.
Old weather system with actual limited visibility (not via clouds or precip) is what we need(ed). Just base the METARS on what the sim is generating at a given airport and don’t look out your window (don’t tell anyone but…, your NOT in a real plane).
I played around at a few airports to see how METAR is rendered in the weather engine, the results are quite random. The METARs are met by procuding clouds with similar properties, therefore no chance to get achieve a dedicated value.
Afterwards I tried to move the coverage slider several times and it looks like it’s just randomizing the cloud positions around the aircraft, which has the biggest effect on visibility. So there is no chance to aim for a certain value, it’s obviously just dependent and the position where the clouds are centered
→ In a nutshell, the user has no control regarding visibility. Visible is an arbitrary result of a few parameters
