Dangerous Skies

Stormy, husky, brawling, that's what the sky looked like when I took off at KORD 14R late in the afternoon. All the way along the taxiway up to the area where I had to hold short and wait for the Cleared for Takeoff message I had been watching the strange dark color of the sky that had an extremely low ceiling that day.

The way nature was roaring in FS impressed me deeply. Gosh, I hadn't expected such a turmoil in the Chicago area. Panning my field of vision around I noticed that the sky around me almost seemed to explode with dozens of lightning bolts turning the clouds into a sea of magnificent and menacing colors. Both clouds and lightnings were absolutely mind-boggling.

For a moment I remembered the times of FS history when clouds were but little white bubbles filling the sky and so I could hardly believe what was going on outside my old Cessna 182 RG. In addition to a somewhat limited view the wind was heavily rattling the aircraft and it took some effort to stabilize heading and climb alike. Flying the Cessna under these conditions was a real challenge to say the least.

Seconds later, it suddenly occurred to me that I should find out more details about the animated feature of lightning in FS2004 and so I quickly paused the simulation. Swapping out to spot plane view I could now watch my aircraft with the airport buildings in the background. A little further trick helped me keep the plane at its position slightly above the runway while I allowed the simulation to go on working in the background: I pressed the Y-key and then released the pause function again. This way the weather procedures of FS could go on working.

What I encountered in the next two hours was pretty stunning. I just watched the screen and systematically captured screen shots until I had quite a number of different lightnings in store. I subsequently changed the seasons and the daytime, thereby creating slightly different weather environments. However, what remained were the thunderstorm with its lightnings, and a lot of precipitation all around. Rain droplets fiercely splashing against the cockpit window. Almost photographic in appearance. It looked just like the real thing!

It dawned upon me that I had better try a landing approach and get down my plane as soon as possible. Drat, easier said than done, because with winds at 18 knots from 60 degrees it turned out to be a tricky thing to get her down safely. And all the time the whole area was ablaze with lightnings. LIGHTNINGS...LIGHTNINGS...LIGHTNINGS. Oh geez! What would all this be without the tremendous sound of thunder penetrating my ears. SWELLING, ROARING, RUMBLING, FADING. And the whine and hum of the wind. Constantly, no moment of relief. I never experienced such brawling weather in any version of MSFS before. AWESOME, you guys at Microsoft. Nicely done, indeed. (If you asked me to be really picky and find something that's not quite perfect, I'd have to say that the effects may be a bit exaggerated from time to time, but sure they are a BIG contribution to eye-candy which seems to be the wave of the time. And I welcome it.). Now again, rain pounding the windows and clouds skimming my little aircraft. Phew! How can I get out of this helluva storm?

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTICALLY AMAZING!

For a while, I dived deeper into hunting lightnings produced by the latest version of this granddaddy flightsim of all time. Many pictures were taken the way I have explained above, but some were indeed captured during actual flight in the sim. This time I went out to chase lightnings in the LAX area. And my eyes almost popped out of my head once again. Yep, the effects were truly outstanding, and what is more, seldom did I discover forms of lightnings that were fully alike. Down in the screen shots you can see one of the rare exceptions.

With the purple illumination of its dome-like Encounter Restaurant the LAX site also forms an impressive background for screen shots in MS Flight Simulator. Just like in real life its popularity shows no sign of decreasing in my sim. So I decided to go there next. Yep, capturing the following night scenes over there, I was again gob-smacked by the terrific animated effects. And boy do I mean t-e-r-r-i-f-i-c! Do you like them? I bet!

Wow, wow, and triple wow! Let's have a look at these:

Huh, after checking the lightnings as part of the FS weather engine it is high time to continue my flight. However, time has passed and it has completely grown dark at KORD by now, but at least there is no rain, wind and thunderstorm around in this area any longer, which promises to be a steady flight to Gary (KGYY) airport in the very southeast of the mighty heart of Chicago. But I am sure I'll always remember today's flightsim moments. I sure believe FS2006 will even be better. Maybe they'll even give us back the old Cessna 182RG as a Gmax model (dreaming on huh?).

Heck, FS2004 is the most exciting and realistic "seat-of-your-pants" flightsim I have ever used to date. This feature story is my thanks to the developers at Microsoft. Once again a BIG thank to the boys and girls at MS who have created this sim for us. For me too. Thank you for these true flightsim moments, and give yourselves a pat on the back, you deserve it!

It doesn't do justice to lump all the other forms of lightnings together, but in the interest of not turning this into a book I will add a link down at the bottom to download the whole lightning package from the file library at FlightSim.Com.

Enjoy your flights and hopefully safe landings, in spite of pouring rain, dazzling snow, and awesome thunderstorms!

Ulrich Klein
huki.klein@t-online.de
Download the FS9LIGHT.ZIP for FS2004