unsuccessful hurricane hunting ...

[MarcoAviator]

Yesterday I decided to go hurricane hunting (Katrina) but didn't have much success ... I took a C130 hurricane hunting at around 2000z.

Should have been interesting interesting ... "let's see how Flight Sim depicts a hurricane ..." I thought to myself.

I planned to take off from KIBX (Keesler Airforce base) and landing ... wherever I could ...

Aim of the mission was to find the hurricane eye and come back out in one piece.

I was connected with FS9 real weather Jeppesen and in a three hours flight over sea and land did not find any bad weather (scattered 12knts variable wind and some thunder heads but nothing major)

I don't think that FS2004 in general gets the weather correctly over water ... I think the only weather they get is over land based stations.

So I am sure that as the hurricane is moving INLAND, today should be an interesting day to fly around that area.

I think that this is a limitation of the reporting stations used by FS2004 ... not even a limitation of Flight Sim itself.

If there was a way to get weather data for the area automatically fed into FS2004, that would work.

That being said, I just recently purchased Weather-Maker (weather-maker.com) and I noticed that they have the option of creating hurricanes in "custom weather mode".

While it would have been exciting and interesting to fly into a weather automatically generated and fed real-time through real-life weather stations, as it actually happens, I think that custom-made options (like Weather Maker, for instance) are really the only way to do this ...

A bit disappointed I suppose ...

[commoner]

lol.....just been to New Orleons and a World weather "snapshot" has 37 knot winds and light cloud..........and it is raining............a bit..........BBC weather says there is a hurricane going on there. Maybe I'll ring the BBC and tell 'em they're wrong.....commoner

[Craig.]

It all depends on when the last weather station report came in. Remember alot of them can and will have been damaged if not destroyed in this storm.  This is where FS weather comes from, and its usually an airport weather station which is even more exposed to the elements.

[JBaymore]

This discussion seems to come up every time there is a major hurricane in the southeast USA.  And the results are just about the same every time.... 99 percent of people who try to find a hurricane-type storm in the FS9 "real weather" system.... don't find anything even close.  About 1 person per hundred seems to post that THEY found really rough weather.... but my own experience is that such extreme weather is not simulated well if at all via the real weather system.

The fs9 system supposedly gets it's data from the closest reporting weather station... so maybe what happens is that the weather stations that supply the system being used go "offline" when the weather gets bad.... and the "closest" reporting station..... is hundreds of miles away.

Who knows.  It really IS disappointing for simming though.

best,

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

[Souichiro]

Actually I tried the same today

I must say it wasn't a Hurricane but it was the first time I saw moving Clouds in FS  ;D So some succes, took off in from New Orleans somewhere. Nice scenery there Gonna do some Amphib flying there

[PlutonianEmpire]

I also tried to go hurricane hunting (but in a jet instead ), but got the same result: nothing. Instead of towering storm clouds, i got clear, open weather in the gulf.

Maybe there should be the option to get weather from the Weather Channnel in the next flightsim?

[bschott]

I went hurrican hunting, and was hit with extreme thunderstorms, windshear, up/down drafts and everything else you would expect.

While you don't get the exact 'eye' and rotation of the hurrican, you do get to fly in the weather itsel and it's a fairly close representation. I didn't use any payware addons...just made sure I was getting VATSIM and NOAA metars and the direct data feed from the NOAA public servers (who were feeding the raw data coming from their hurricane hunters aircraft, right onto the web)

Here is what I did...(I have a registered copy of FSUIP or whatever it's called)

1)Started FS9 on my main computer
2)Entered a flight plan into the VATSIM network
3)Started on my second computer (in this order)...
- FSWIDE (Allows all my programs to think they are on the main pc)
- Squawkbox (So I can connect to the vatsim network)
- FS METARs (My weather program) (Set to NOAA metars)
- AIBRIDGE (allows my TCAS enabled aircraft to see other users)
- TCAS2 (a nice TCAS with 150 mile range)
- ServerInfo (So I can see who is online and where they are in relation to me)
- FS Moving Maps (So I can follow where i am via charts)
4) Made sure that FSUPI (or whatever) was set up to accept only external weather information (FSMETARS) and not use FS9's internal weather.
5) Selected my WP-3D aircraft, KMSY as my departing airport (starting at the cargo ramp) and hit "start flying"
6) Waited until FS9 was fully loaded up and then connected to VATSIM as STORM1.
7)Jumped back to my main computers desktop and started FS screens (for turning any printscreen key press into a .bmp screenshot)
Got clearance from KMSY_V_TWR to take off and then dove into the storm.

Have many great screenshots I will share in an hour when I get home, to prove it can work.   I had reported winds of 150 MPH.

BTW, Activeweather is a great addon I have heard, but haven't tried.

(Also, using the NOAA issued METARS instead of the VATSIM metars seemed to give better weather updates...also the KMSY airport didn't report any metars at all..so there was a large gap in the FS9 real weather reports)

[JBaymore]

Yeah... external weather programs DO work far better.  But we were really discussing the default fs9 "real world weather".  Which "ain't so real"  ;).
   

best,

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

[Katahu]

I [as you all know] use Weather Maker Pro 3. It's payware, but it gives you payment options like: Current weather only, Archived weather only, All of the above, etc. Since I only use CURRENT REAL WORLD WEATHER INFO, I only payed for that one option so it was cheap.

Very realistic and true-to-life weather it has.

[bschott]

Yeah... external weather programs DO work far better.  But we were really discussing the default fs9 "real world weather".  Which "ain't so real"  ;).
   

best,

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

My mistake.  Yeah, most of the people realize that the default FS9 'accuweather' feature is shoddy at best.

Everything except FSUIP was freeware and it turned out really nice.

Here...check these screenes out.

[bschott]

For those that wanted to fly in hurricane conditions but didn't want to use any addon software (go figure) here is something I found for you over at AVSIM

FS2004 MV Challenge - Hurricane Jeanne

File Description:
FS2004 MV challenge - Hurricane Jeanne. Fly through Hurricane Jeanne in Florida on Sep. 26, 2004, using its real weather. Expect winds above 100 kt. Try any aircraft you wish (no add-ons are required). Choose long runways, dirt strips or water. Provided is a startup FS2004 flight in the default C172, with real weather from Hurricane Jeanne, and a map of the area. Freeware by Michael Vone

Filename: m4hrcjne.zip

Size: 1404kb (~1.4MB)

May not get the eye of the hurricane, but you will be able to fly the conditions.