Hi all, I have to say I’m really enjoying this sim and I’ve been flying a lot this past week!
My question is in regards to the windsocks.
I need to be right next to them before I can see them, in most cases way too late.
I’m flying VR so I don’t know if it’s more of a problem with VR but I know the same issue exists with non VR. I have my graphics set very high as I have a strong rig. Is there a setting that I’m missing in the graphics that will draw the sock at a further distance?
As well, I noticed a lot of strips don’t even have one, perhaps that will get fixed down the road? Anyways, not a big deal, it’s just nice having them for my low and slow bush flying.
TL;DR; No, unfortunately there isn’t much we can do about it.
There are a few problems with windsocks.
They often aren’t in the expected location.
They are a little harder to see than in real life. Part of that is because of the first issue and part is because of LODs. It is also likely harder depending on the particular monitor used.
They tend to be invisible until we are too close. They need to be visible further out.
At 1,500ft AGL they appear absolutely tiny on my 2k monitor and I find them much harder to “read” than in real life.
A common practice for a pilot (me anyway) is to research a new airfield before going there using tools like Google Earth to get an idea of windsock location to reduce work load. We can’t do that in MSFS. So Asobo need to either/or:
Make the LODs work better for windsocks to increase visibility.
Show the windsock location on the world map so we can get an idea of where to look for them.
As for not having one. A lot of strips don’t have them in real life. If I have no weather information for the area, I judge the wind direction based on airspeed vs ground speed. I find that works pretty well most of the time.
Thanks for the response. I suppose it’s subjective to the individual but I’d tend to say that most air strips I’ve come across do have a windsock. To me, it’s a very fundamental and important part of any aero dome.
But we can’t measure what I mean by “most have” and what you mean by “a lot of strips don’t have”, it’s purely subjective on both our parts.
Regardless it would be nice to have the draw distance fixed.
At 180° ? There were a lot of freeware sceneries that have this issue. It can be easily corrected. I’ve noticed several dev on it (like the great KAVX Catalina). A new issue with double windsock pointed in opposite direction appeared as well with 1.12.13.0. Easy to correct (I notice the Cottonwood scenery dev and it was corrected in a second, thanks to him).
I experience that also but… If I’m on approach ( especially with non-controlled airfields) I first do a low pass to check for obstacles on the runway of choice and the direction of the wind sock.
In the case of active ATC , they will tell you what runway is in use at that moment. ( at least IRL)
Not sure if AI ATC is that clever but I’ve quid using that since I experience too much rubbish from them.
I hope /expect AI ATC to become smarter over time.