I’m trying to make my flights as real as possible and one aspect I think I need to improve upon is weather planning for flying with the ‘live weather’ system.
I’d be interested to know what methods people use to get the in sim weather at their departure / destination airports and also enroute weather for flight planning purposes?
I currently use a mixture of the windy & metoblue websites to get an idea; are there any in-sim methods we can utilise when planning other than loading into an airport and listening to ATIS?
I’d suggest only using MeteoBlue as a source of data for starters and even then we don’t know exactly the update cycle in the sim, so it could be behind/stuck (it has happened).
For longer flights, I’ll look at the wind layers on the world map, cloud, precip and plan a basic route that way.
That is pretty much it for actual (sim) data based planning.
But you could go on and look at real life TAFs/METARs for your departure/destination plus alternatives along the route you’ve planned but obviously they are not based on MeteoBlue data.
Longer term, I’d like to see the sim weather system opened up (unlikely, they’ve said so), or better tools in the sim for flight planning (more likely).
I’m making a web app at the moment to read a .pln file and create a pdf to print or use, adding frequencies, restrictions etc; then uploading a gpx record of the flight.
I’d like to add weather planning as one of the steps but hard to make informed decisions with no data from the sim as to conditions at each airport until you’re within ATIS range.
I don’t think so. You could affect the weather IRL, by injecting sulfur dioxide or other substances in high volume into clouds, but the resulting pollution would outweigh the benefits. Wind, temperature, light, fog cannot be affected at all, only precipitation and cloud density.
In MSFS you can’t set weather for the future, but MSFS does allow setting all aspects ! arbitrary weather and time changes at any moment. Of course, I understand the fun of planning things in advance, but why can’t you simply change the weather (in MSFS) when you need changed weather ? Simulation reflects reality and in reality… the weather happens.
I’d love to know what sort of workflows you use in real life - I’d like to simulate as much as possible a realistic scenario with regard flight planning.
I think at the moment getting some indication of TAF/Metar from meteoblue is the best way to go
Im dispatching medevacs for only the Province of Québec for the last 12 years, so kinda rusted for international flights
But basicaly
Check that the plane is available / MELs
Check weather/notams at origin/destination/alternate
Check sigmet enroute
Try to optimize altitude for winds and CB avoidance
Weather prediction differs from weather planning. I would agree with you, that it would be very nice, to have weather prediction in MSFS. The planning… you can do it with external tools, see above. In RL there is no planning. Keep in mind I did not mean to attack you in any way, I just find this a funny topic
SkyVector (free) for use stateside. Pretty useful if you can decode the METAR reports that appear when you click on a colored circle. The info therein doesn’t match the sim real closely, a lag in the data that it loads on startup, I think. I have a decode sheet if needed…
Awesome, Cap! I can decode from memory now, but this would help someone starting. I’ve found that I usually just check to see how old the report is, visibility, current ground wind speed, barometer and cloud layers. As I said, it oftentimes doesn’t match up with the sim very well, but it’s a start… By the way, I saved the link, I like the readability of the online decoder… LOL!
Thinking this through some more, when we use ‘live weather’ there is always going to be some disconnect with third party websites / weather apps, as in real life, however I wonder if MS could add the weather conditions on the flight planning map when starting a flight.
That way we can see how much disconnect there is between forecast and then make a decision.
I’ve added a Wishlist item here if anyone thinks that’s a good idea?
Agreed. When I use third party apps for weather and try to predict weather and wind direction at the destination for a best guess at the runway in use. On occasion, I’m right, but more often than not, I’m scrambling to change to VOR2 and reset my approach. Sometimes it’s just easier to land on the taxiway
Yes, it is a bit of a scramble when ATC directs you to an unexpected runway - usually landing downwind. Although for my last few flights I’ve actually been given the correct into-wind approach - probably just luck or is something happening nobody’s been told about?
