"Real World Weather" for flightsim via jeppesen

[UK_RON]

Anyone know what is happening with this weather business?

Three days running I have attempted to get real world weather in flight sim and it has either part loaded (best of 11%) or completely crashed flight sim which is now causing me some concern.

I know that DAFIF have pulled the plug on producing new updated information to the public and with all the other things involved with flight sim I just wonder if jeppesen have pulled the plug on MS (yet another to join the band of unhappy campers providing MS with data?) which leaves us with no way of flying "as real as it gets" and could completely stuff the RTW competition which insists on real world weather and is only 2 months away.

With all the people involved in flight sim and all the developers of freeware/payware for flightsim it seems a shame that such an important part of flightsim is to be lost, maybe, unless we accept less or pay for yet another add-on to provide weather downloaded from the real world etc.

Does anyone know what is happening and as to whether this situation is to be permanent or will be rectified?

[andyjohnston]

I'm hoping it's just that something has gone down. I'm sure that rebooting the server so people can use flight sim isn't their biggest priority, they probably won't even realize it has happened until Monday morning.

I'd like to think Microsoft would've said something about this if it were being discontinued.

[kurtvoss]

cant you live without for a while?

[RFields]

I suspect it's one of those every six months or so disconnects that has happened since FS2004 was released.

Should it occur during the Around the World Race, I'm sure the organizers would have directions for us on how to set the weather for official flights.

Among the hardest things we practice / do during the RTW is tailwind and crosswind landings.

Usually we pick airports with plenty of runway length for the relatively light aircraft. We also almost always land on the runway closest to the direction of travel - circling back for a favorable wind costs time.

Until Real World Weather comes back up - probably Monday afternoon, US time - either use an addon weather program if you have it, or set the weather to one of the medium types and practice with those conditions.

The RTW Duenna will show a yellow warning about the weather. We would note that during the official race events.

You might also want to purposely setup 15-20 knot crosswinds (at about 30 degrees off your nose to start) for you destination airport.

[TX_3306]

According to MS tech I talked with, the Zone server where the weather is pulled from has gone completely down. I was told that it would be back up in 2-3 days.

[UK_RON]

Thanks for that, it is unfortunate that in the UK we do not have access to Jeppesen so I was unable to get the info myself. I have just checked again today at 1616Z Mon 19th Dec 2005 and again fs crashed attempting to download the weather so I guess the server is still down.

To everyone, apologies if the thread was slightly "off" but I was concerned so near to the Christmas holidays that it would be just forgotten and this is usually such a good time to get the weather and its effects.

I do have ActiveSky but that is such a drain on frame rates that I have never re-installed it but out of curiosity from so many that know these things better than I, where is the best place to get the weather from? Does the Jeppesen weather represent the real world as I have usually found it not to be the case when compared to that provided by vatsim and ivao who all at times have different ideas of what the weather should be and know from past experience that the ATC on the networks has reported conditions that don't exist in flight sim and vice-versa. Does ActiveSky get a more accurate weather representation hence the drain on resources?

[salt_air]

I hear ya loud and clear on not wanting to waste time by circling back to land into the wind, but that could quickly become a false economy if one were to crash. If you've had the advantage of a tailwind for the almost two hours you get to make the leg, maybe an extra minute or so to make a tight downwind-base-final sort of u-turn wouldn't be so costly considering the consequences.

X-wind take-offs as well as landings should be practiced all the time. Those of us that use real-wx (whenever it's working right...lol) are doing just that every time we fly. Always a challenge, makes flying fun, can't get enough practice with x-winds, no matter how long any of us has been using the simulator.