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Windsock vs wind - who wins??


squeeker

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Just noticed that after overflying the field at YPMQ that the wind according to the sock was straight down the runway, so I descend to circuit height on the dead side and join midfield crosswind. The downwind leg seems a bit longer than normal.. then I'm not making a square base leg, then I tear down final, but the ASI looks right, I'm on the numbers. Sideslipping my heart out I land a third of the way down the runway. You'd think I landed with a tailwind! Check the sock again - nup wind is still straight down the runway. Turn on smoke - it blows in the OPPOSITE direction. I'm going mad. Ok so check the wind by pressing SHIFT+Z and the wind matches my smoketrail, but is 180 degrees in opposition to the windsock.

I got the same result at YRED and YPMQ and at YLIL the sock is 90 degrees out from the prevailing wind..

At boring old Jandakot the sock matches the wind and seems to elswhere. So is it my settings or are others getting the same results? As someone who checks the wind by looking out of the window before entering the circuit I do use the sock, and try to stay away from the FSX information windows as much as I can..

This is something so fundamental I'm convinced that it's my fault..

Any ideas guys?

YLIL 90 degrees out regardless of wind direction:

Posted Image

Posted Image

YRED and YPMQ 180 degrees out regardless of wind direction:

Posted Image

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This is likely to be a heading issue in the placment of the windsock object.

This is certainly the case with the FsDeveloper windsock (which is designed to be placed at heading zero), and most other fs2004 derived windsock objects

With regard to the second question:

Most primary windsocks in Australia are white, with secondary ones yellow.

Occasional other colours are in use (oranges and pinks in Alpine fields so I gather) - hence the colour scheme

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This is likely to be a heading issue in the placment of the windsock object.

This is certainly the case with the FsDeveloper windsock (which is designed to be placed at heading zero), and most other fs2004 derived windsock objects

Windsocks at YRED (both) are set to zero degree. I guess there is another thing which doesn't work like it should ?

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Some years ago I fiddled with airport design & found that there are socks & there are socks. Many of the sock objects didn't work no matter what I did. I found a white one that did work ok & stuck with that. I guess some objects are made to look the part but not actually do anything. I've noticed that in FS9 scenery those socks that have the same colour scheme as Wally (Where's Wally fame) don't work properly, even though they wobble about as if they are being blown by wind.

Ian

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Hello Squeeker

You are not wrong about the socks - someone (err me) misread the wind direction in the sim to mean wind direction "to" rather than "from" so when tested the socks appeared to be telling the right story but were actually 180 degrees out. Corrections coming soon via an update when I have finished testing the new socks.

John

ps good tip about using smoke which very clearly highlights the problem.

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Thanks for the response John.  ;D

Great to know that it's not me going (more) insane. Seems a really petty thing to even bring up after such fantastic work. Can't wait for more of your wonderful stuff! YPMQ is just outstanding!

Thanks again, Steve.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Is it possible to "add" smoke to some of the Cessna's & Piper's etc, as that is a great way to "cheat" and check wind direction, especially when planning T/O from some of the OZx bush strips!  ???

Entirely possible. Just open the aircraft.cfg file for the Extra 300 (which has a smoker) and copy the relevant parts of text into the aircraft.cfg of the plane you want to add the smoker to (remember to back up the original aircraft.cfg in case you make a mess of it). Been a while since I've done it so I don't remember the exact text you need to copy but with a keen eye and a quick mind you should be able to figure it out. Note: you may need to  change some of the coords data to get the smoke coming out at the right spot.

Windsocks: I wish Microsoft had realised that the second most important bit of scenery in the whole world for pilots are windsocks (runways top the list). Maybe then instead of wasting tim eon  fancy moving cars and boats and birds and all that other eye candy they would have either a: created a decent windsock model or b: allowed modellers to be able to make decent windsock models.

in fs9 you could (with a bit of work) make a model (which would occasionally work as it was supposed to) but in fsx they got rid of that.

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Is it possible to "add" smoke to some of the Cessna's & Piper's etc, as that is a great way to "cheat" and check wind direction, especially when planning T/O from some of the OZx bush strips!  ???

Well, if you're looking for a cheat, there's always Shift-Z ;)

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