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Headwinds, why so much?

PostPosted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 6:10 pm
by Mistro
I live in the US and observe that the weather basically travels from west to east. Many of my flights are long hauls going from east to west but more in the southern areas like the Caribbean and sometimes South America. It seems that 85-90% of the time I'm getting a headwind of some kind. I rarely get tail winds and to top it off, the winds are always in excess of 70kts. Is FSX hell bent on giving headwinds? Or does the general direction of flight (East-West, West-East) play a role in this? I use real world weather via REX.

Re: Headwinds, why so much?

PostPosted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 8:56 pm
by N. Chapman
No that's just how the prevailing winds work ;)

Re: Headwinds, why so much?

PostPosted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 9:29 pm
by Mistro
No that's just how the prevailing winds work ;)


Didn't quite understand your answer.

Re: Headwinds, why so much?

PostPosted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 10:30 pm
by BAW0343
Prevailing winds - winds that blow predominantly from a single general direction over a particular point on the Earth's surface.

If the predominant winds are from west to east and you fly east to west, what do you expect to get?

Re: Headwinds, why so much?

PostPosted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:28 pm
by N. Chapman

Re: Headwinds, why so much?

PostPosted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 12:07 am
by Mistro
[quote]Prevailing winds - winds that blow predominantly from a single general direction over a particular point on the Earth's surface.

If the predominant winds are from west to east and you fly east to west, what do you expect to get?

Re: Headwinds, why so much?

PostPosted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:43 pm
by Dave W
Mistro,

    The issue you raise may have to do with available data.   I do NOT know how FS gets winds aloft data from around the world but before it can do anything there must be some type of data available.   High altitude winds aloft can only come form a balloon with a transponder that can be tracked by radar or a balloon with a GPS that can transmit data to a receiver.  I don't know how often this happens in Central Africa.    It's possible that FS uses the last data update until it gets something new and that's going to be effected by high and low pressure areas at the time.
  Just guessing on this...

Dave