I’m a pilot. Firstly I want to recognize the amazing achievement of this sim and its graphics. I can see its great potential. However, I would like to point out that the sim needs a big improvement in how airplanes are affected by the weather. In real life, turbulence is not always related to the wind (horizontal movement of the air), but it is sometimes, and when it becomes more challenging, related to the thermal movement of the air. For instance, flying in very dry places at high elevations and hot conditions can create terrible flying conditions, even when the wind reported at the airport is CALM. These conditions usually create a lot of turbulence and the airplanes usually become more unstable around the longitudinal axis (wings banking) unexpectedly, also, the thermals can create sudden climbs or descents which are not directly related to the indicated airspeed. I have tried flying in these challenging conditions to find no turbulence at all, and this becomes very frustrating.
Hope this insight helps the developers improve the sim.
Pretty much @ 24:16 - they’re working on formulas to generate these gusts/turbulence as there’s not much data in meteoblue’s data stream for live weather to create these winds. But Sebastian basically said there’s not much turbulence around at the moment due to colder weather and last year everyone was complaining that it was too turbulent because it was hotter weather.
I’m happy with how the weather is I’ve been flying in the last few days some parts were turbulent some parts weren’t. It feels realistic to me compared to real life flights I’ve been on. But saying that I mainly fly around Australia/Asia so weather probably different to yourself.
I’m flying the Cessna 208 in the islands around Ketchikan, AK and often get turbulence caused by updrafts around the mountains. I was surprised at first at how realistic flying from water to mountains was in MSFS 2020 even with the wind layers deleted.
I was a private pilot basck in the late 70’s and early 80’s before kids.
Believable but still only visually managable turbulence is a difficult topic. A hangar or a line of trees next to the short final can create dangerous down drafts if the wind comes from this side and you can only counter them im reality because you feel them. Same for circling in thermals in a glider, there is no visual reference, you feel them and you react accordingly. In the sim there is no way to feel it, you‘d have to move the cockpit on the screen, overdo it etc, the consequence would be a huge amount of complaints about unrealistic turbulence.
This doesn‘t mean I‘m against it, but it will have to be done very carefully.
Thanks! It is nice to see they are already talking about implementing improvements on this subject.
Flying in real life can be very challenging when dealing with turbulence, especially with wind shear near the ground. I trust the team will improve this in the following sim updates.
I would still like to see an option to add turbulence manually so that you can always dial in a bumpy approach if you want it.
It will be great if they can improve the algorithm, but it’s extremely complex. Apart from the weather component, turbulence can be caused by man-made sources of heat on the ground, and there is no way they’re going to be able to model that.
I’ve flown primarily in California most of my life. I learned in the Central Valley, then moved to the Central Coast. The updrafts and downdrafts and wind shear created by thermals close to the ground - typically on approach to land - can be downright nasty at times. To drop a wing by ten degrees or more when you’re slow, and fifty feet off the ground, is challenging to say the least.
It’s a good topic, and there are some good observations in this thread.
A way to “dial in” the level of reality would likely make the most people happy. I’m glad the subject is “on the table” so to speak.
There are no wind gusts, there’s no wind shear, no variable wind direction (during TO/landing), basically only mechanical turbulence. Plenty of things missing, and I for one haven’t ever heard of people complaining about too much turbulence in hot weather.
It’s great to hear the devs are slowly and surely implementing missing features more “organically,” however I’m a little bit worried that we won’t see any challenging situations while flying.