Heavy weather

[theophile]

Hey guys,
I got into some very heavy weather recently with the L-049.I was about 30 miles out of my destination airport and needed to get down from 9000 feet to sea level.I lowered the MAP to absolute minimum
as well as the RPM.But whatever I did,the Connie would not descend due to strong updrafts.My speed also constantly stayed way above the first flap or gear speed,so lowering these was out of the question.
Can any of you give me any advice as to what to do in this situation?

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
What wheather engine are you useing , what sim FSXA / FSXSE / P3Dv4 , and what settings in the wheather engine , as i found ASN default settings for turbulance / updrafts ectra to be to strong and un realistic , also what speed was the connie at , when you say speed was to high for gear/flaps.
Also on the connie , slow down , then one notch of flaps before you go down.
regards alan.

[Hook]

I use Active Sky and have the maximum updraft and downdraft rate set to 500 fpm and don't have problems.

In your situation I'd be thinking about slowing the Connie down enough to start lowering flaps before I worried about trying to descend in 1500 fpm updrafts.

I saw 1000 fpm updrafts in a real life Cessna 172 once. We were climbing at over 1500 fpm fairly heavily loaded at about 7000 feet altitude at the time. I considered asking the pilot to reduce throttle to idle to see if I could thermal the 172. Hot Texas day, cloud base was 9000 feet, better than I ever saw with CumulusX that I was using in the sim at the time.

Hook

[theophile]

Thanks for the answers,guys.I am indeed using Active Sky and so I could modify turbulence parameters.My speeds did not really get below 200 kts so lowering anything would have been problematic.The
plane was tossed wildly up and down and when I tried to disengage the Sperry,it only made matters worse.At least with the Sperry on,I had some control.

[Hook]

If you're flying through an area of thunderstorms, you should be avoiding clouds. If you get into a cloud in a thunderstorm you'll experience what you've described. I believe there's a setting for realistic up/downdrafts in thunderstorms.

I suggest in a situation like that turning off the autopilot and hand flying the plane. It makes it a lot easier to avoid thunderstorm clouds. I think the worst thing you can do in a thunderstorm is follow the magenta line.

Hook

[WB_FlashOver]

I had a situation much like this a while back. In my attempt to get control of the aircraft I put her in a 2500 FPM climb, throttles and RPM cut almost completely and my speed was still increasing to over 260 knots. Nothing I did would slow her down. She finally broke apart and we all perished. I was also getting slapped around like a badminton birdie. I felt it was very excessive. Active Sky has not done that to me sense an update shortly after that flight but after that crash I also edited my settings to what you see in this thread. I started experiencing that same whacked out weather before I edited settings and AS update and so I ended up just shutting AS off to finish the flight.

Here is another thread about this topic.
https://www.a2asimulations.com/forum/vi ... 04#p523026



Cheers
Roger

[theophile]

To Mr. Hook:of course you are right about avoiding thunderstorms,but ,following 1940's protocol,I do not use weather radar,and I was really surrounded by the storm in all directions.I did also get the
impression that I was at that moment better of using the Sperry.I tried manual flying ,but it was disastreous.I finally got below the storm and managed to land the lady succesfully.

[theophile]

To Mr Flashover:Thank you for your message.I am comforted that someone as experienced as yourself met the same conditions I found myself in.And you also experienced the high speeds.You really
understand what I was talking about.And I guess you are right:AS is the culprit here.

[Hook]

You can't avoid thunderstorms, but you can avoid clouds. You have to visually scan for openings to fly through. Weather radar helps but isn't necessary for this. Autopilot may help in the turbulence and limited visibility inside a cloud but picking a course to fly between clouds might be easier when hand flying.

Also, google "storm scope" and check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_detection
They had these fairly early, so the use of the XGauge isn't totally unreasonable.

Hook

[Hook]

I've experienced what was labelled "severe turbulence" on the navigator's panel a few times and the effects aren't pretty. The problem isn't Active Sky here, the problem is the pilot not avoiding areas where it happens. It happens in and near thunderhead clouds. If you're using XGauge these are the red areas.

I do not use the XGauge in the Connie and I can stay out of thunderhead clouds at altitude easily enough.

If you have to descend through clouds in a thunderstorm to land, avoid areas where the thunderheads are and deal with the turbulence as best you can when flying through the normal clouds on descent. You may have to hold and wait for a thunderhead to move away from a destination airport, or divert to an alternate. The alternative is losing an aircraft and having to start a new career.

You can configure Active Sky to have less impact in those areas. The only changes I've made were to reduce the effect of wind shear down from the default of 50 to 1 and limit updrafts and downdrafts to 500 feet per minute, everything else is default. I have realistic thunderstorm up and downdraft rate enabled. Enhanced turbulence is disabled as per default. These are under wind options (and effects).

Hook

[WB_FlashOver]

I rarely let weather determine flight path. Yes, I've flown miles and miles around storms when needed but almost always land where I intended. The weather I mentioned above was a 1400+/- NM flight from Entebbe, Uganda to Antananarivo, Madagascar. AS was showing solid cloud cover over the Island but no warnings. After we all perished in a cataclysmic and spectacular fashion I checked actual weather on Island and it was not showing anything severe. I re-flew the leg the next day and AS did the same thing and actual weather was still not showing anything severe. So I just shut AS off and finished the flight. I check the weather a week later and AS was still showing the same weather like it was stuck in bad juju.

Another time I was snaking through some random thunder heads at FL220 staying >10NM away at all times. I was getting random mild turbulence that would hit moderate occasionally and I kept the passengers belted in knowing rough weather was likely. I was skirting the last cell with clear skies ahead and "POW", the simulator started reloading the scenario. It was like I hit an object.

So, yeah, in my opinion AS sometimes goes off the rails. I love flying RWW and rarely let it determine my destination. I back up my plane data files prior to each flight just for those rare crashes into invisible objects or even more rare AS goes bonkers.

Cheers
Roger

[Hook]

Thanks.

I've noticed that sometimes and some places Active Sky doesn't seem to be handling the weather well. I've seen it act like the weather wasn't being updated for over a day. It's only recently that I've wondered how much we can trust their weather.

It sounds like you hit wind shear. Usually it warns you and has yellow lines and black indicator where it is. I wouldn't be surprised if they were out there and you don't get warned. Usually the program is good about letting you know about severe conditions.

I assume you're using Flight Watch radio on 122.00 and 122.02 to keep up with conditions on the route. Also, check the main map, not just XGauge and make sure everything is turned on.

Hook

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
If i get inacurate or corrupted weather from ASN , it is usually at weekends , and it relies on the nearest weather station to where you are at , and real world weather stations sometimes go off line for updates to systems , if ASN is getting its weather data from a station that is off line , then you get inacurate weather due to it going to next nearest station , or if the station goes off line while getting the weather from it , then you get corrupted weather data , then real bad ju ju happens.
regards alan.

[WB_FlashOver]

Hi.
If i get inacurate or corrupted weather from ASN , it is usually at weekends , and it relies on the nearest weather station to where you are at , and real world weather stations sometimes go off line for updates to systems , if ASN is getting its weather data from a station that is off line , then you get inacurate weather due to it going to next nearest station , or if the station goes off line while getting the weather from it , then you get corrupted weather data , then real bad ju ju happens.
regards alan.

Very good Alan, I believe this is what has happened to me, and this is why I don't feel like I've "cheated" when I just shut the weather engine off.

Roger

[theophile]

Thanks for all the new input guys!I really learned a lot here.