MM – The Golden Age – The Lightness of Flying the Mew

Made it safely enough. Flew low below the headwinds, a tactic made more difficult due to Jeppesen/FSX awful atmospheric pressure algorithm.

Real world weather in this area (after the thunderstorms of Darwin) was about 29.92 while FSX typically registered something below 27.00 inHg. (World record stuff.) This meant that the aircraft's altimeter was typically registering 2,000-3,000 feet too high. Flying low proved a twitchy thing today.

Anyone else having this sort of problem?
 
The World Record for lowest atmospheric pressure is 870 millbars or 25.86 inches of Mercury. (http://wmo.asu.edu/world-lowest-sea-level-air-pressure-excluding-tornadoes) This record was registered in 1979 during Typhoon Tip, the world's largest and most intense tropical typhoon on record.

The air pressure for Cloncurry (YCCY) in FSX right now is 24.98 inHg. Gosh!

Extremely difficult to start the aircraft and a trial run took thousands of feet of runway to get the wheels to lift. Unreal...

Interesting choice. Fantasy weather from MSFSX or risk FSX crash with Active Sky? :isadizzy:
 
OK. Going to gamble with Active Sky and something approaching real world weather. Fingers crossed...
 
Double Drat!! That witch doctor has failed again.. gonna have to see about getting me money back ;)
 
MM said:
Real world weather in this area (after the thunderstorms of Darwin) was about 29.92 while FSX typically registered something below 27.00 inHg. (World record stuff.) This meant that the aircraft's altimeter was typically registering 2,000-3,000 feet too high. Flying low proved a twitchy thing today.

Anyone else having this sort of problem?
Click to expand...

Hi Mike,

I saw this earlier but forgot to respond until now (sry btw).

Check out this .jpg of ASA when I was crossing thru Pakistan in the Comet... Flying from Baghdad to Agra. "It" began in Southern Afghanistan and continued thruout the mountain passage of Pakistan. The Altimeter automatically reset to its minimum setting in the Kollsman Window; since I was using the Autopilot set to 11,500' - the aircraft began descending. It stopped around 8500' on the Shift-Z Altitude, I think. I do remember having to climb to clear mountains... looking at the Shift-Z Altitude, I keep increasing the Altitude on the Autopilot until an Autopilot/Altimeter reading of 14,700' equaled 11,500' Shift-Z Altitude. Very bizarre to say the least.

Once inside India, the Altimeter started making "slow increasing jumps" of say 40 to 60'. Every few hundred feet increase I would decrease the Autopilot by roughly a concomitant amount (staying "ahead of" the Altimeter). There came a point where the "B" key came alive and I could start resetting the Altimeter Setting. Before too much longer the Autopilot Altitude Setting/Altimeter Reading equaled the Shift-Z Altimeter and resetting the pressure in the Kollsman with the B-Key seemed to be functioning normally... And I continued on to Agra w/o (further) incident.
 
Fun flight from Cloncurry to Charleville. After a little experimentation, settled down on nap of the earth (well, 2000' ASL, 1000' AGL) flying. Produced a 7kts headwind but avoided much higher winds aloft.

And, as a bonus, got a spectacular view of FTX Queensland. Rather stunning scenery at this altitude and speed. Good thing there are no Redwoods in Australia...
 
Rob,

That's exactly the same pattern. When the air pressure goes below 948 millibars (on this altimeter) the adjustment stops. Guess that the manufacturer was not planning on routine trips at record air pressures...

Got similar phenomena in both FSX Wx and ASA. But the extremes were much worse in FSX weather--at least over the last few days.

Makes for nervous flying--or at least encourages the pilot's attention.

Wonder if this is really typical of the FSX weather engine nowadays--and we have not really noticed it before. (Or wonder if everyone knows this well already...if so, how do folks routinely work around this?)

Mike
 
After a week's office work, now on to Melbourne.

As ever, facing headwinds. Estimated Time: 3 Hours 20 Minutes.
 
Safely down.

Flew down to 2,000' to duck under the winds. Good luck in avoiding headwinds (and catching a slight helping wind) made for a good Racing time. But my ETE now looks pretty awful!

Ah, the complications of competition!:isadizzy:
 
Hey MM; congrats on completion. :applause: Yes, the headwinds weren't as prevalent as I predicted throwing my time off 3nm/h on average.

Thanks for making it all fun. :applause:
 
Congrats on finishing the race!! Too bad the precision time didn't work out, but it's sort of like hitting a hole in one in golf. While there's great skill in getting in close to the hole in the first place, it takes a bit of luck for it to actually go in.
 
Congratulations Mike! I wish I could have flown racing times like these. Nice run and a brilliant race.
best
Olli
 
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