Wind vectors and interaction with ground

  • Dear IPACS team,

    One of AFS1's great feature was that when you setup wind, it actually flows over ground and interacts with it.
    You could even display the wind vectors, materializing the drifts.
    It makes a real plus when flying within mountains or overflying ridges, compared to the blank, laminar flow through mountains we have in other simulators.
    Of course, the real thing is extremely complex to modelize, but the result wasn't bad at all.

    The wind vectors display function disappeared from AFS2. I still felt some wind interaction with the ground, but not quite comparable to AFS1 either, as if there were only up or down drift, but no turbulence effect...

    What about this feature ? Is there a chance to have it back ? Or was the computing model totally removed from scope ?

    Best regards and keep up the good work

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • As someone who flew in the mountains I have to say that I didn't like the wind model of the Aerofly FS 1 that much. It was good when you were flying along the mountain face or if you had the wind speeds low, but for middle to high wind setting the wind speeds at the ridges were much too high. So high in fact that you would overspeed the glider just to stay in front of the ridge. In the real world you can take a thermal in front of the slope and you climb in almost a straigth line even past the ridge line. Above the mountain the thermal isn't blown away IRL when winds are moderate with about 30-40kmh (about 20kts). The cumulus clouds also form over the ridge lines and are not blown away by 250kmh winds that we had in FS 1...

    Simulating the local wind system is the only way to make the winds in the mountains realistic at all. When overall wind direction comes from the south and the valley is from east to west, then you don't necessarily have an updraft on the south facing side of that valley. It could be that the wind blows from east to west or west to east... And even if the valley is aligned north / south the wind in the valley could be coming from the north when there are higher mountain ridges in the south block they way for low altitude air masses. In a good sunny day in the alps with winds from the south west (say 20kts) you have west wind in the west of the alps, wind from the east in the eastern part between France and Italy, wind from the south from Italy towards Switzerland and wind from the north to the south from Germany to Switzerland. Ergo the alps suck in the air around them and generally blow them upwards where at high altitude the wind direction is opposite of that near the ground. The alps are a local low pressure system during the day...
    The airmasses meet above the highest ridges or are rising upwards at locally high points.
    And I am very much missing that wind system in any of the sims, apart from Condor that I haven't tested there yet.

    Cheers,
    Jan

    Regards,

    Jan

  • Thank you Jan,

    I fully agree, the real thing is much more complex than the AFS1 model.

    But at least there is something. I used to set a rather calm wind setting and was pleased to feel some turbulences when flying in the Alps.
    Typically, I avoid flying in the Alps IRL when then wind is above 20-25kt.

    Of course, a glider pilot tries to take profit of aerology. As a piston engine aircraft pilot, I rather tend to do with, and a calm wind setting in AFS1 brings some life.

    On the opposite, I found fancy behaviours in AFS 2 with the aircraft flying smooth and horizontal, but experiencing a sudden "loss of power" when passing by a ridge, without direct pitch effect or turbulence (the only apparent pitch effect is induced, after loosing some 300 rpm).
    As if there was a sudden down draft that however didn't affect flight path, but suddenly the cruising aircraft was in climbing conditions while flying horizontal...

    Dependip on the flight direction, you suddenly reach an over rev instead, with the same phenomenon, just inverted...
    The AFS1 model made more sense in that kind of scenario IMO.

    Best regards
    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.