Thermals, Up & Downdrafts - Realism Update/ Airmass Simulation

That sounds unbelievable!! how come that silly complaints can have so much power?
That’s crazy and frustrated as xxxx!
And of course it won’t be possible to avoid that sim update10 and stay stuck to the current one!

Guys really I wish we are wrong in our speculations but it feels bad if it goes this way, Asobo can’t be so weak to please only GTA gamers ! Come on! It can’t!

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Maybe we can hope that the implementation of Gust Winds and CFD won’t make the aerodynamics flatlined because of “new” limitations? I don’t know… it is hard to understand to get a picture in of all this confusion

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Look here what I’ve just read, please sensible soul to withold:

" Where can I turn off turbulence? For smaller aircraft, flying is unenjoyable due to turbulence. The simulator is getting worse. It would be good if the user could adjust the setting of the turbulence intensity. It would be so easy … "

Scary, right?

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My God…most of you all still worried about what SU10 will bring?..was I not clear enaugh when i told you not to worry?..

I am almost certain that there will be absolutely no change whatsoever to the “turbulence model” in the next sim update…which means its all going to stay exactly the way it is right now.

And you want to know why I am sure of this?..plain and simple…Asobo is not going to give in to the complaints of just a few who are not satisfied…because if they do it will make them look weak and too complacent…they have a reputation to uphold and besides they have way much bigger fish to fry…bigger issues that need to be dealt with…and trust me this “minor turbulence issue” is definitely not at the top of their priority list…hell its most likely not even on their to do list at all!..

So again I tell you folks…nothing to worry about…

You really think that big brother Asobo is going to let itself be intimidated by a small minority of unsatisfied crowd?..come on.

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I just hope they do something about the way the gust winds affect an airplane. It was totally unrealistic from what I remember.

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I agree with the topic title- And to mee it dossent fell right when you can fly to thunder storm or super cells when you can fly trought them without any effect to the airplane. you can fly trough these conditions like under good weather conditions. i mean i use the weather radar(when itts out) to fly by or overfly these bad weather conditions to prevent the airplane von structure damage.

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I’ve flown plenty of hours since starting SU9. In the flatlands, in the mountains, over lakes, in coastal areas; with real weather with my own settings and with those that were installed with the Discus.
MY OPINION!
Basically: There are weather situations in reality where flying is not possible. The same is true for FS2020 real weather.
I have found no difference between good real weather conditions and self created weather settings. Both work equally well or badly.
Questions:
Does the situation look better before SU9? YES
Have slope winds up and down changed any better? NO
Are up and down drafts present under clouds? YES
Are the areas under clouds correct as expected? NO
Is the strength under clouds in relation to the size or change decrease and increase OK? NO
Are blue thermals present? YES
Are the expected strengths OK? NO
Is Thermal on the ground arising where it might be expected? NO
Note: I have found thermals triggered on the ground in very different weather situations exatly in the same place. How can this be?

My feeling: Downdrafts are often OK or too strong and sometimes over too large areas. Upwinds could sometimes be 10-20% stronger independent of the uncorrect positoin.
So that beginners do not have to create visually unrealistic weather situations to fly easier, I would add a multipilkator with which thermals can be diminished or strengthened according to your own feeling.
Development:
Is gliding in FS2020 basically possible at the moment? YES
Is it easy? NO you need experience like in real flying
Am I very satisfied with the overall situation? NO
Did I expect everything to be OK with the SU9 update? NO
Is gliding officially supported with SU9? NO
Will everything work with SU10 as I expect it to work in real? NO
Can this be so at a later time? YES
Is everything on schedule for me? YES
Is it worth continuing to be patient? YES
And the most important question:
Is it already fun? definitely YES
Gliding for me:
Gliding is not ballooning. So I have a destination and it is exciting if I reach it, over which way I get to the destination and how long I need. At the same time I “enjoy” the landscape.
However well or poorly it is working at the moment, it is a challenge.

Happy gliding :slight_smile:
Many greetings Ralf

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My 10 cents: Seb Wloch messing with the wind slider to affect thermals is a mistake. I am certain ‘air collecting before rising causes a temporary local ground wind’ had nothing to do with that proposal, more likely it looked an easy way to dial-down vertical air movement with the minimum changes to the sim UI. Maybe an optional ‘accessibility’ setting would be more appropriate.

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I’m gonna list this here also in the op since this fits basically as realism update for up/down drafts.

But just to be correct,in RL you get increased sink while exiting the rain cloud or while beeing in the rain cloud? I just want to put this in short words.

Wet wing, due to microturbulences caused by water droplets, has both worse lift and greater drag coefficients. I separately tested under and outside clouds as under raining cloud increased sink could be masked by additional lift generated by latent heat, but outside clould for some time the wing still should be wet so increased sink should be also experienced.

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this can be booked under the category ‘‘flying through bad weather doesn’t have any effect’’.

Maybe the icing system can be used to perform some (way smaller) effect when rain hits the airplane.

Visually the water droplets are simulated pretty good, also that they take some time to disappear after the rain is gone. So maybe this can be linked to your described physics effect.

I feel like opening another topic for that bad weather thing…

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I started an new/ extra topic:
Realistic dangerous weather - physics simulation

it’s somehow related to this thermal up&down draft realism topic, but I feel like it should be mentioned specifically, to let Asobo know if people want more Arcade or more Simulation.

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updated first topic post, any additional ideas / wishes are welcome.

" Using CAPE, the maximum updraft speed in a thunderstorm (w-max) at the equilibrium level can be calculated. In general, w-max = square root of [2(CAPE)] . For example, a range of CAPE of 1500-2500 J/kg gives a w-max range of about 50-70 m/s (100-140 kts). However, due to water loading, mixing, entrainment, and evaporative cooling, the actual w-max is approximately one-half that calculated above."

http://weather.uky.edu/about_cape.htm

Could this be used in simulating convective updrafts? CAPE values can be taken straight from Meteoblue. Perhaps the same or similiar could be done with downdrafts? There is DCAPE as well which computes CAPE values for downdrafts.

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According to Jorg Neumann in an recent interview with FsElite he mentioned thermals aren’t in the sim yet:

…It is the same with gliders. You need thermals, which are completely different. Some people think that we have thermals, but we actually don’t have thermals in the sim. For it, you need to know what the terrain is, where the sun is, how much moisture there is, what the wind conditions are, etc. Then you can get thermals and we actually needed a bunch more data that we didn’t have before.

this is confusing, it’s like the complete opposite from what Asobo Seb said in the last Q&A …
So everything we thought to be thermals aren’t actually any.

Sadly I can’t even edit the original post anymore because a staff member locked it. ‘‘Basic thermals are implemented’’ isn’t the case then… :frowning:

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I can only assume what Jorg meant, was that the current implementation isn’t finished, but only a first step towards fully simulated thermals.

I agree though, it is confusing.

I really hope one of the next Dev streams goes into much more detail about what the goals are for gliders in MSFS, and how they plan to achieve them.

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Sim Update 10 Beta Release Notes [1.27.9.0]

Weather

  • Per feedback, turbulence & drafts have been reduced by 90% at 0kts wind speed and 50% at 1kts wind speed (no change above 3kts wind speed). Turbulence and drafts have also been reduced by 50% at high altitudes

… ‘‘let’s limit and reduce stuff because of a few complainers’’ all over again :sweat_smile:

These are very minor changes in my opinion and I am thankful for that. Its hardly ever the case that there is less than a few knots of wind so no change to turbulence at this or any higher wind speed means most if not all my flights will be much the same, they will have a reasonable level of turbulence at lower altitudes, and a bit less at higher ones.

would be interesting to know if this effect also kicks in with the live weather, as soon as you fly in a zone with 2 knots wind, boom, no more thermals :sweat_smile:

Might be not noticeable as long the wind doesn’t go below 3 knots, but the general 50% reduced turbulences at higher altitudes doesn’t make any sense. Or is this the case in reality? (I’m no pilot)

I think it was a tadd over the top at higher altitudes so they dialled it back. Turbulence dissipates at higher altitudes so you would not expect it to be present say crossing a group of trees 10000 feet in the same way you would at 1000 feet.

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