stunning dawn morning sky broke over Logan International. I took
off for Martha's Vineyard in my Cessna 182S from runway 15L. A
thin jet trail overhead is the only obstruction to an otherwise calm,
clear sky. It's a day for VFR flying and I had decided to take
the longer, more scenic route to the Vineyard via Cape Cod. As I
approach the Cape Cod region, I notice a few stratus clouds ahead.
Not to worry, I could still see through them the shades of tan that
make up the shore of Cape Cod below. Suddenly, I'm surrounded by
whiteness -- the same whiteness that just a few moments earlier was
so unthreatening. I've started to bounce around in the cabin as
if I'm driving around the surface of the moon and it only seems to
be getting worse! Quickly, I climb an additional 500 feet to 4000.
There's still some jostling around but the air is calmer and more
manageable. Shortly thereafter, the thick clouds below dissipate
gradually to a partly cloudy condition and the sky becomes friendly
once again.I descend back to 3500 and continue my VFR to the Vineyard. All seems fine on my approach to the runway. A few hundred feet from touchdown, the wind kicks in and I find myself landing in a crosswind condition. I kick in some right rudder to this delicate act and I manage to bring the aircraft to final approach speed. “Screetch -- screetch -- screetch”! I land in one piece with a couple of unwanted bounces, but I'm alive.
When I upgraded to FS98 I found Real Weather v3 and shortly thereafter, v4 on the Internet. These versions were nice and a great improvement over the wxadv program. Though they were less work in the actual generation of the weather environment, installation was a novice's nightmare -- and it even tried this network administrator's troubleshooting skills! Jeff's instructions were sketchy, several files had to be downloaded individually and everything had to be in the right place and had to be the right version for v3 and 4 to work. The work was worth it, but without patience, I'm sure many were left disappointed.
Version 4 was supposed to be the last incarnation of Real Weather, then, enter Steve Halpern. Jeff Wheeler had wanted to implement FS Clouds in Real Weather, but had been unable to for technical reasons. Turned out that Steve Halpern, the FS Clouds author and Jeff lived relatively close to each other. This proved to generate enough “umph” to get a synergistic thing happening and VOILA -- RW5 with FS Clouds compatibility and, with the touch of Steve Halpern, a familiar, user friendly installation interface with a slicked up front-end. Wheeler had already created something wonderful, Halpern put the icing on the cake! With RW5, gone are the problems of the earlier rwxadv and earlier installation problems of versions 3 and 4. So how do you do this Real Weather thing? Let's take a look at what's happening here.
After installation and a reboot, you're ready to roll. I usually start by downloading the most current weather observations off the Internet.
For the SA format, it's Curt Olson's site hands down: http://www.menet.umn.edu/~clolson/weather/. Curt's site offers weather for the US, Canada, Mexico, and a few miscellaneous. Downloading Curt's usa.rwx file only is processed by RW5 much quicker than the METAR file. The METAR file is much larger as it contains airports and waypoints from around the world. RW5 will process METAR format in a little under five minutes on my P200mmx/32. Five minutes isn't long, but it's precious when time is a commodity. If I'm flying over a long distance or in non-US or Canadian skies, METAR is the way to go. But if I'm only crossing five waypoints or less, the SA format is preferable as it saves time. Curt's weather is updated hourly at roughly 18 minutes after the hour.
After you've overcome the SA vs. METAR format and the file is downloaded, it's time to get off the web and start Flight Simulator. I usually get my adventure or situation setup and ready to roll before I minimize FS and run RW5. If you use the Monster 3D video card or any other card that requires the ALT-ENTER to see 3D, you may not want to go into 3D mode until you're finished with RW5 and ready to fly. RW5 works with Flight Simulator in 3D, but to access the RW5 interface, you must be in 2D mode.
If you use any add-on adventure generating program that also generates it's own weather, such as Adventure Builder by SimuTech, you should remove the weather layer the program generates from the Weather Dialog box in Flight Simulator. Only the default “Global” weather area should remain.
The RW5 interface is easy to manipulate. You first select the weather format you just downloaded, SA or METAR by clicking on the white button to the left of the “Select File” option. This tells the program what kind of file to look for. Then you click on “Select File” and open the file into the RW5. At this point, you either select “Update Weather” (if first time using file) you can select “Use Last Weather” if you wish to use conditions from your previous session. You should also select “Send to FS” so that the program can connect to Flight Simulator and decide whether or not you wish to use FS Clouds for this particular flight. If you select “No”, the program will use the FS98 default multi-texture cloud or the multi-texture cloud provided with FS Clouds if that cloud is presently installed in FS.
Once the weather has been processed, you will see the name of the closest station on the main green screen and you'll see the word “connected” and “processing random weather” intermittently on the main screen Status line. Once you see that you're connected, you're ready to go back to FS, ALT-ENTER to 3D mode if you have a 3D card and begin your journey.
As you fly through the weather areas, especially if using the SA format, the changes are sometimes more sudden than with the METAR format. I haven't been able to determine if this is just a perceived difference or if it's indeed true. The FS Clouds textures seem to be a bit jerky if flying fast through partly cloudy weather areas. This is also true if you're using the default multi-texture cloud that comes with FS98 or the multi-texture cloud that comes with FS Clouds. However, it seems a bit less obvious with the multi-texture. If I'm flying a slower aircraft, especially VFR, the FS Clouds textures can't be beat. As you're flying more slowly, the change is less obvious if you're flying through several weather areas. If you're practicing touch and go's and you're generally in one area, the FS Clouds texture is the way to go when running RW5.
John Goodlow
E-mail: njgoodlow@sprintmail.com
