Turbulence does not cause wing drops

Bug Reporting Hub Weather & Live Weather
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What do you all have with Youtube videos, the video I’ve posted were downdrafts and turbulence so yeah pitching up to counter the sink is completely realistic.

Please don’t tell me what is realistic and what is not, thousands of hrs of experience here as flight instructor and airline captain. I never claimed the simulation of turbulence to be realistic (see previous post). But wind / turbulence does influence flight path and roll axis, that claim you made is wrong.

You can punch in gusts all you want, that feature is currently broken (or turned off on purpose?) so the only gusts you get is from terrain. For me that is perfectly fine, these gusts you manually punch in just cause a layer of random noise on top of the airflow simulated over obstructions which (should) create realistic turbulence.

I don’t need to proof anything, you can just open the sim, go to Dubrovnik (LDDU), select 40 kt crosswind and see for yourself if it was PIO or not. I haven’t seen any evidence supporting your case in this thread? I don’t think the problem is flight model based, the severity and amount of gusts on the other hand is a valid discussion point,

Cheers :clinking_glasses:

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I don’t agree with you at all, what I agree least with is your attitude dear sir. You are not comprehending what I’m saying so let me try again. The OP in the original post states that turbulence does not affect flight path and roll, a statement which is clearly wrong. Turbulence and gusts do clearly influence the flightpath if present.

This was my original post:

And this was your reaction:

I think this is a entirely unnecessary comment, I never disagreed with the current wind / turbulence modeling not being realistic, I made that clear from the start.

Then you start a subject on autopilot performance in crosswind conditions, something you clearly don’t know anything about. No idea what autopilot / autoland certification you are talking about and what it has to do with this subject. Point is, there is no autopilot crosswind limitation for flying an CAT I / NPA or APV approach, CAT II / III and autoland isn’t required as 40 kts crosswind and low visibility usually don’t coincide.

I never said that the turbulence/ wind in MSFS is realistic. Where there are loads of obstructions within the friction layer it currently creates quite realistic turbulence and wind shear, down to around 1000 ft from which point the wind starts to reduce to 50%. This effect isn’t always strong enough and should extend downwind of obstructions further.

There is a bug (or wrong implementation) which causes the wind on ground to be exactly 50% of the wind entered in the weather menu. This most probably is a simple rule of thumb they borrowed from some meteorology book, it is more or less correct for lower wind speeds but falls apart with strong wind or gusts.

Currently for a wind of 30 gusting 40 at ground level you need to select a wind of 60 gusting 80 (!!), that is of course completely wrong. Usually the opposite is true, it becomes more gusty while getting closer to the ground. The gust function currently doesn’t do anything at all, could be a bug or maybe this is done on pupose.

The point you keep referring to is the statement made during a dev Q&A about up / down drafts being “dumbed down” in relation to thunderstorms, which has not much to do with this. I don’t know what copy and pasting you are talking about. Thousands of hrs of real life experience as instructor and airline captain here, don’t know how much you got.

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Oh gosh, maybe cry of laughter? I already explained numerous times that there never was 40 kts of crosswind, FS2020 slices the wind speed at ground level in half.

Second I never claimed this to be realistic, the only point I was making is that wind and turbulence DOES affect the flight path and roll axis. Subsequently this is not a flight model issue.

Interestingly I haven’t seen anybody mentioning here that gusts are currently completely broken in MSFS, the only gusts / turbulence you currently get are from terrain. You can select gusts all you want, it doesn’t do anything.

But I’m done here, there isn’t really any testing / discussions going here to get to the core of said problem and helping the devs to solve this. Instead its mainly complaining and nagging people with posts like this:

Have a nice day.

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Let me offer my interpretation based on my personal experience of the little test and the screenshots I have posted above of the Inn Valley example.

In my eyes it confirms what everyone has been saying on this thread in more or less different words and what the developers also have acknowledged a while back.

Although these a still-shots, I would expect to see a much more pronounced downdraft so close to the ridge to the point where the C172 can’t even keep the altitude at full power (see the VSI). Probably in the order of minus 1000ft/min give or take.
Secondly this downdraft would extent much further downwind over the valley (this was also observed by some posters here before). A bit away from the ridge no downdraft is noticeable.
Thirdly and that is what the photos do not show. Yes there is some turbulence modeled but as stated before, it seems to be tuned down.

If you have some personal experience flying in mountains close to the terrain try out this experiment as I hopefully have provided all the infos to it and share your views.

I would hope that Asobo turns off whatever they did and then we can reevaluate.

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Fully agree, interestingly when looking at the feature discovery video’s it seems like it does extend quite far downwind of obstructions. Maybe they did tone it down or “dumb it down” at some point, see for yourself:

In my opinion the problem is as follows:

I have not found the effect of wind and gusts on the flight model to be unrealistic, the wind, gusts and turbulence themselves are a different story:

  • The surface wind is 50% of the mean wind speed, this needs to be fixed. This does happen when using manual weather, I’m not sure about live weather. I’m interested to know if the wind injected from a METAR is also cut in half using live weather?
  • In addition to the point above, to select a wind of, lets say, 30 kts gusting 40 kts at ground level, you need to select 60 kts, gusting 80 kts into the weather menu. This is of course completely absurd, the wind is normally getting more gusty closer to the ground, not less gusty.
  • Ground features do create turbulence and wind shear including up / down draughts although not strong enough in some cases and not extending downwind far enough.
  • Gusts in the weather menu (and maybe also in live weather if gusts are reported in the METAR) are currently not working. This could either be a bug, or a deliberate choice.

I think there are two different approaches possible:

  1. Mean wind and gusts including frequency / shear strength are entered via the weather menu or injected in MSFS from the METAR. This would not be the most realistic way forward as I see it, it would mean that wind is unaffected by ground features within the friction layer, mountains, buildings etc. This would also mean there will be a disconnect between the (temporarily) change in direction and / or wind speed caused by for example CBs passing around and over the airport. Also the reported wind is an average wind and gusts are not reported below 10 kts over the average wind. In other words a wind which is reported without gusts could still be gusty, so for live weather this isn’t particularly reliable.
  2. Mean wind is selected or injected via METAR when using live weather. MSFS simulates the airflow over ground features in combination with air mass effects, thermals, CBs to create a realistic representation of the atmosphere, turbulence, gusts etc. This is far more complex but creates a more realistic environment. The following needs to be accurately simulated for it to work:
  • Mechanical turbulence
  • Mountain waves (in a way this is mechanical turbulence)
  • Thermal (convective) turbulence
  • Frontal turbulence
  • Clear air turbulence (jet streams)
  • Cumulus clouds draughts and turbulence
  • Wet microbursts (down poor of rain)

I don’t think we can or should have a combination of both options, that would create a realistic environment with a layer of random noise on top. Maybe an option to turn off atmospheric modeling and then give the user the option to select wind speed and direction + gusts over average wind + direction.

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I’m also a former flight instructor, airline pilot and now fly a corporate jet, so maybe the laws of physics and atmosphere where we fly are different!

Look up for hurricane Larry, fly into it and give me a PIREP. I get a smooth ride as if it were 5AM of a beautiful day. WX completely red…

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image900×665 117 KB

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Now you are shifting the discussion from the effect of turbulence on roll and crosswind landings to the absence of turbulence in convective weather, the title of your topic states “turbulence does not cause wing drop”. Nobody disagrees with lack of gusts and turbulence, the title of your topic suggests it is about the effect of the gusts and turbulence on the flight model. What I don’t understand is why it differs so much from what is shown in the feature discovery videos. In the first video they clearly show that air in and around convective weather is simulated. So yeah, either dumbed down or bugged.

May I suggest to change the title and description of the topic to better reflect the lack of turbulence and gusts rather than the effect it has on the flight model? Maybe it will receive more votes that way, if there isn’t a topic on this already with more votes that is.

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Just came across this thread:

In which multiple real world pilots claim the turbulence in clouds is too strong. Its an old thread, maybe Asobo has tweaked it down a little too much…

Just search for turbulence and you will see there are posts claiming its either too strong or too weak…

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/turbulence-over-mountainous-terrain/418800
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/no-turbulence/417543

I honestly don’t know how this has evolved through the updates but it seems it was more realistic (stronger) some updates ago.

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I don‘t know how it exactly relates to this topic, but there is another topic which may address a similar issue and has more votes:

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Yes I think the two threads are related in their attempt to point out and provide proposals to the underlying problem.

Afik. Each thread owner would have to agree to merge the threads, add the votes and potentially get more / quicker attention of the developers.

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HI, well let’s look at what you wrote shall we?

You did say it doesn’t seem unrealistic, only later did you then add some context and say actually yes it is unrealistic for all the reasons you gave.

I do appreciate you giving all the detail on what’s going wrong :+1: And I do think we agree so I’m not digging you out, I just don’t really understand the purpose of your original post and this is a general annoyance I think on the forum at the moment. Someone reports a clear, real issue that is pretty uncontroversial and that really needs attention, and someone posts a video that they say shows there isn’t a problem. This is happening a lot here, and it’s just frustrating people constantly trying to cast doubt on acknowledged bugs.

Why make the post if you agree with the basic issue? We all want it fixed and all it does is muddy the water and give the perception to anyone reading, including the developers, that maybe there isn’t a problem. As I say, nothing personal, I just think a lot of us are getting really frustrated with all the unnecessary posts contradicting someone who has raised a known and legitimate issue.

I acknowledge what I said about autopilot certification was wrong, and thanks for your correction and information. Look at this, someone on the internet admitting they’re wrong! How much better the world would be if more people could do that. I was thinking of max demonstrated crosswinds in aircraft certification which aren’t hard limits of course. As those often below 40 knots they show how significant a wind that is even for a huge jet, and a pilot would never use the autopilot in those conditions, which I guess is what I was trying to get at (badly).

Have a good day!

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I was talking about the approach, not the landing. I might not have been clear about that indeed.

The original post and title of this thread is contradicting. The whole topic actually is about the lack of turbulence and gusts rather than the effect on the flight model (not causing roll). That was exactly what I was responding to. I agree with the lack of turbulence and gusts, particularly close to the ground, that is a confirmed problem. What I don’t agree with is the “turbulence not causing wing drop”.

There is a similar topic in the questions for upcoming Q&A which got a lot of votes so hopefully it will get answered!

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Actually I am getting wing drop now due to the wind. I remember when I was young one of the biggest crosswind landing topics my dad pushed was to keep the wing into the wind down because if gets under it can literally flip the plane over if its strong enough. That being said. I did an approach into Glenwood Springs with enough crosswind to push me off the side of the runway. I crabbed but by the time I got straightened out I was too far down the runway. I tried to go around but it was too late and I crashed into the trees. Great stuff, I feel like the learning experience was much better there. I still think yes there should be an option for the sightseers to enjoy no turbulence and thermals but for the real simmers it really makes the game what we want it to be. Can’t wait for the weather updates to push those thermals, wind shears, and all the great things. I loved the icing other than the wind shield part where you can’t see at all and the fact that once you got above freezing temperatures the ice still wouldn’t break/melt off until you landed.

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What could be causing this behavior?

It kept happening last night. Live weather borked? There were no clouds at all, lot of wind.

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Isn’t this what was missing prior to SU6? Hence the bug report?

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It looks like it’s a real severe downdraft. look at the vs indicator -85 or something. The plane has no liftrate then it’s hard to control the plane. Maybe the mountains under causing it to drop like a leaf.

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Makes sense, weird though that it kept doing it with positive climb rate as well.

It reminds me of that dolphening effect when you use too high sim rate, AP keeps overshooting / over compensating. I tried to ‘counter steer’ to stop the wild swinging but it didn’t seem it was listening to my inputs. You can clearly see the fly by wire system using the ailerons when I’m not touching the flight stick at all. It’s hard to get back in control when automation gets in the way.

Ahh there is an update today for the dev version of the FBW A320. Three notes about fixing roll behavior, one of them in turbulence. A known problem, and likely fixed already! I updated the dev version, works fine so far.

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Yeah maybe it was only a bug :slight_smile: It looked kind of strange. As if it wanted to correct it self but it did it in opposite way and made it more worse than it was. I had a severe turbulence when i tried to set the temp to 60 degrees (makes the mechanical turbulence more noticable that way) and i had similar effect on downdraft and i think it’s realistic if we cant control the aircraft because the air is only moving down, we have no lift in that situation. Thought it was because of that.

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It’s probably what started it. The problem is not being able (or very hard) to get out of it when the rolling keeps amplifying. After dropping out of the turbulent air layer it shouldn’t keep over correcting, but the turbulence definitely started it. (and correctly so)

I guess this ‘bug’ never showed itself since prior to SU6 we never had wing drops in turbulence.

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Yes the wingdrops is much more improved in this version. Thats real good. Maybe some planes need some adjustments to the systems because of that. That will make the planes feel more realistic too in the future. Not like flying on rails. One step in the right direction :slight_smile:

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