What you are actually meant to do is to go to the map, right-click and select 'Add new custom weather here'. The reason being, you do not go (as I thought) to the Wx Control tab and select 'Switch to custom weather'. From a personal point of view, it would be nice if these features were added in future updates as they create an additional depth to the weather effects.Įditing my own custom weather within Active Sky 2016 was slightly tricky and took me a few tries to successfully get it working. One thing we do lose however (which Active Sky Next included) are the sounds from turbulence and wind hitting the cockpit canopy. It's a nice little extra and is also very helpful. There is also a little option in the menu which, if you select it, gives you a small GUI made in the default FSX style and tells you about the weather in your present location and also your departure and destination airports. Initially, the panel is really small when first opened (Shift + N or via the toolbar menu) but you can resize it and toggle each option on or off. This panel gives the user a tremendous amount of information and includes airport info, clouds, visibility in certain locations, weather stations, air traffic, navigation aids, wind shear and much more.
ACTIVE SKY 16 REVIEWS INSTALL
It's simple yet very effective!)Īnother feature I like is the XGauge panel which the software allows you to install into your aircraft. (Changing the time so as to make it more visible, shows you how it works. If for some reason you do not want this effect to happen however, you can disable it in the settings menu. Also, when looking from the external or passenger wing views, the tips of the wings disappear through a 'wing fade' effect. This works well at convincing the user that they are entering a cloud. When flying inside a cloud, and when viewing from within the VC, Active Sky 2016 triggers a 'Motion Effect' which causes a smoke effect to appear in front of the cockpit windows. Prior to installing Active Sky 2016, I think it's safe to say, that I've never seen the sky look so impressive! Even though the clouds don't move as with OpenClouds, flying through them really is something special.
An example of which are: precipitation, visibility, wind speeds, cloud ceiling and thunderstorms. At the time of this review, there are five different scenarios to choose from, with more hopefully coming in the future.Ī final tab is a search option which allows the user to look for locations based on METAR data and certain tags. The seventh tab is a scenario list which includes a selection of scenarios (from real world events) for the user to choose from. Other general information about the flight is also displayed. These include type of aircraft, the speed of the aircraft, wind speed and the weather conditions found on each waypoint. It also calculates the amount of time it will take the user to fly between each one, based on certain variables. Linked to the flight planner, the sixth tab is a flight briefing, which splits up the flight plan based on waypoints and VORs.
ACTIVE SKY 16 REVIEWS SIMULATOR
Active Sky then plots the route onto the Map tab and also allows the simulator to focus on more accurate information (based on where the aircraft is located).
The fifth tab is a flight planner which allows the user to import an FSX flight plan and edit it based on the current weather conditions. METAR data for each airport is also given and includes conditions (in intervals of 3000 feet) from ground level, right up to 56,000 feet. The fourth tab allows the user to input an airport ICAO code, which then feeds back information such as the airport's location, the local time, temperature, wind speeds, visibility and even its elevation. The third tab shows an interactive world map which allows the user to zoom into different locations, toggle different pieces of information such as clouds and stations, and look at specific information regarding AI aircraft, visibility, airports and weather stations. There is a choice of three different modes: Live Weather, Historical Weather (going back 2 years) and the third option, Custom Weather, which allows the user to create their own METAR data and apply it to a station. The second tab named 'Wx Control' is where the user can select what type of weather the simulator will enable. When you load up the software, you are taken to the Active Sky home page which contains popular METAR data from around the world, news and updates from the developers and a list of storms and hurricanes along with their locations.
0 kommentar(er)
