Clouds too low?

[MasterTRL]

Hi,

 

i use v 2.0 and i fly mainly in Alaska and BC. If i use real internet weather, i have almost everytime very thick and puffy clouds very near to the ground (sea level). If i let x-plane create the weather the clouds will be just right. Also if  i start a flight in for example germany with real weather, the clouds are fine too.

 

I am wondering if there might be something wrong with the plugin or with the provided data. Also i am not sure if the weather up there just is like that. The thing is that it is middle of the night in canada when i fly, sitting here in germany. I have not found a way to load real weather from some 10 hours ago into x-plane so far.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[sundog]

Last time I looked into this, our clouds were at the base altitude given to us by X-Plane. As I recall, the other time this came up was also in the context of Alaska, so I have to wonder if something's weird about their METAR data - and X-Plane isn't compensating for it prior to handing it off to plugins or something.

[MasterTRL]

Hi and thanks for the reply.

 

I read/tried myself a bit into that matter to figure out how the actual metar file influences the weather in the game and it looks like the problem is in deed the metar file itself. 

 

In my particular test the Metar file read for PAGS an OVC003 at 730Z and an BKN003 at 823Z which is about an hour back from where we are now (930Z) but i am aware of that delay. Still an overcast or even broken with a base at 003 is pretty darn low.

 

Then of course i checked aviationweather.gov and the values for the last hours do exactly match the numbers in the File.

 

So the conclusion is: Metar.rwx is correct -> X-Plane handles it correctly -> Hands it over correctly -> SkyMaxx shows the correct overcast

 

Looks like it is just not a good idea to fly VFR with night time weather in canada.

 

You don´t happen to know if there is a way to make X-Plane load a Metar file from say 12 hours ago instead of the current one?

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[MasterTRL]

Shame on me! A guy from the org just pointed me to this plugin:

 

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=9820

 

It does exactly what i need.  Now, if i set the flight time to 20 zulu it will actually get me the last 20 zulu weather.

 

Cheers

 

Chris