Simviation Forums

Well my only complaint about the weather is no matter how overcast it is or how cloudy it is, or rainy, if I am high enough (around 2,000 to 4,000 ft) I can see the ground.

Not until I descend am I in the thick of rain and thunder.

Now I know when I am flying a real plane...if its a thick cloud cover I can't see the ground...just white puffy cotton balls as far as the eye can see.

Is there anyway to get a cloud cover that is more realistic in that I can't see the ground if their is cloud cover?

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Make  sure all cloud settings sliders are maxed; that might help.

And bear in mind that sometimes you are in cloud and the distance between you and the ground is less than the "reported visibility", or distance you can see horizontally...( for example:vis is 1 mile; your altitude is 3000 AGL) so the ground might be visible, to some extent. Clouds are not very opaque... you need hundreds or thousands of feet of cloud to block visibility completely.

This is why what's now called "instrument flying" used to be called "ground contact flying"- flying above the reported bases, no visible horizon, but the ground in sight. 

The "lack of undercast" problem is pretty well known in fs2004.  The payware Active Sky 6.5 weather program combined with the payware version of FSUIPC helps to address this a bit.... but nothing that I know of solves it completely.

best,

...............john

just my 2 cents, and being a smart@$$ about it... if you dont want to see the ground, dont look down.

otherwise, you can set your weather to 8/8 overcast from 20ft AGL - X,000ft AGL.  this way if you look down and you are above your assigned "tops" you wont see ANYTHING but clouds.  But yet, you will have to be 19 or lower to even see the runway!  you better fly IFR / ILS for landing otherwise you will be a big grease spot on the runway.

I hold no responsibility if you PC suffers permanent ill effects from this adjustment, but.....

Thanks for the hint, Sean. I tried it on my laptop and while there was a slight difference in cloud volume, my FPS more or less halved. On my desktop installation with a machine capable of running FS9 maxed, there seems to be good overcast coverage anyway.

joey- Go into Weather.