SU11b Convective Weather & Turbulence

[V1ROTA7E 771]

This post on the official forum really piqued my interest. Earlier today I went thunderstorm hunting, but was overall pretty underwhelmed. There’s a tropical depression west of Cancun that I decided to fly through, but the weather wasn’t really that bad.

Then there was some thunderstorm activity up in the Boston area. There were a few bumps, but nothing too crazy, nothing like I’d expect to see in the real world. I turned on wind visualization (which was really neat), but it showed minimal activity in clouds. Nothing like the rapid up and downdrafts you’d expect. 
 

That post really got my hopes up, but I hope it wasn’t a fluke. Has anyone else in the beta experienced the “good” version of bad weather?

[MegaRiceBall 99]

This one is also great

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/guide-testing-the-new-airflow-visualization/549454?u=megariceball734

One picture from the post showing convection 

[lwt1971 7,987]

2 hours ago, V1ROTA7E said:

This post on the official forum really piqued my interest

That post really got my hopes up, but I hope it wasn’t a fluke. Has anyone else in the beta experienced the “good” version of bad weather?

I'm also not on the SU11 beta yet but multiple reports on the official reports on the official forums about certain kinds of weather and how it now more realistically impacts the aircraft certainly sounds promising, i.e. where flying into storms and certain kinds of clouds/airflow actually has more realistic consequences than pre-SU11 looks like (see https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/625274-sim-update-11-beta-will-begin-october-12/?do=findComment&comment=4858118)

Would be also interested to hear from those here on avsim who're using the new beta.

Hopefully MS/Asobo will give more details on the next Q&A and/or feature discovery episodes coming later in Oct and Nov about the new CFD-based atmospheric airflow simulation and other aerodynamics improvements in SU11. Very much looks like the 20km cocoon of air around the aircraft is indeed being simulated in more detail via CFD calculations, taking various things such as sun position, time of day, season, terrain type,  physical structures and scenery objects, trees, slope of terrain, clouds, etc into account for overall air mass flow calculations and up/down drafts.  Wherever those air mass flows collide is where turbulence occurs and that can all be visualized now.

Even a small sand berm impacts airflow now per this post: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/guide-testing-the-new-airflow-visualization/549454/5?u=lwtxb:

[rick celik 1,265]

I’m on SU11 beta although I haven’t had a great deal of time to test everything, so far it feels very alive and very good, you also have to be aware of  where and what you fly into or over. Hope this helps 

[peppy197 165]

25 minutes ago, Ridvan Celik said:

I’m on SU11 beta although I haven’t had a great deal of time to test everything, so far it feels very alive and very good, you also have to be aware of  where and what you fly into or over. Hope this helps 

I hope they implement weather radar then....

[rick celik 1,265]

43 minutes ago, peppy197 said:

I hope they implement weather radar then....

Yep I personally believe it should’ve been in the sim from day one. 

[FBW737 530]

So are there Thermals? If there are I'll join the beta and fly into them in the gotgravel discus and critique the word not allowed out of them!😁

[FBW737 530]

deleted

Edited October 15, 2022 by FBW737

[V1ROTA7E 771]

Turbulence from thermals is different from mechanical, mountain wave, convection....Thermals are due to the the sun unevenly  heating the surface of the Earth causing air to rise. They are a catalyst for convection; that unstable warm moist air rises and cools creating clouds and storms, but they're two different things. I'm more focused on convective turbulence - the turbulence associated with thunderstorms.

[Cpt_Piett 4,963]

4 hours ago, V1ROTA7E said:

Turbulence from thermals is different from mechanical, mountain wave, convection....Thermals are due to the the sun unevenly  heating the surface of the Earth causing air to rise. They are a catalyst for convection; that unstable warm moist air rises and cools creating clouds and storms, but they're two different things. I'm more focused on convective turbulence - the turbulence associated with thunderstorms.

I don't think I've noticed more turbulence in clouds. Just took off from LGIR Heraklion in the King Air, reported thunderstorms in the area https://badbadweather.com/thunderstorm. 

Metar: 

Quote

Wind 260° 18kt, gusting 28kt. Visibility 500m. Heavy thunderstorm rain. Clouds scattered 1000ft, few 1800ft cumulonimbus, broken 2500ft, overcast 7000ft. Temperature 18°C, dew point 17°C. QNH 1008hPa. No significant change.

Like I said I don't get more turbulence in the clouds. Will do more testing in different places with thunderstorms. Interested to hear what others experience. 

EDIT: Do we need to choose one of the CFD-enabled aircraft? There's not that many to choose from yet. List here: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/new-propeller-cfd-soft-body-simulation-airplane-list/504719

Quote

NPS: New Propeller Simulation
CFD: Computational Fluid Dynamics
SBS: Soft Body Simulation

• NPS_____________: Aerosoft Twin Otter
• NPS_____________: Beechcraft King Air 350i
• NPS + CFD_______: BlackBox BN2 Islander
• NPS + CFD_______: BlackBox Trislander
• NPS + CFD_______: Bonanza G36 improvement project
• NPS + CFD_______: Camair 480
• NPS_____________: Cessna 152
• NPS + CFD + SBS_: Cessna 172 G1000 (other variants not confirmed)
• NPS_____________: Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• NPS + CFD_______: DA40-NGX Improvement Mod
• NPS + CFD_______: DA62X Improvement Mod
• NPS + CFD_______: FlyingIron F6F-5 Hellcat
• NPS + CFD_______: FlyingIron P-38L
• NPS_____________: FlyingIron Spitfire MkIX
• NPS_____________: Freedom Fox, Fox2
• NPS + CFD_______: FSReborn Sting S4
• NPS + CFD_______: GotGravel Monster NXCub, Savage Grravel, Savage Carbon
• CFD_____________: GotFriends Discus-2c
• NPS_____________: Milviz Cessna 310
• NPS_____________: Robin DR-400-140b Dauphin mod
• NPS + CFD_______: Savoia-Marchetti S.55
• NPS + CFD_______: Touching Cloud Ka-10M HAT
• NPS_____________: Van’s RV-7 and RV-7A

EDIT: Just completed a flight from Heraklion to LGRP Diagoras, Rodos. On approach I flew into some very heavy clouds. As per the approach I was to descend from 3000ft to 2500ft. The autopilot was not able to do this. I checked in dev mode => options => debug weather and enabled “proximity airflow visualization”. In the image below, moderate vertical wind turbulence was reported - basically updrafts of 1475fpm. I also experienced significant downdrafts in these clouds. Although the plane didn't get shaken around, handling the aircraft especially in the updrafts was challenging. 

Some pro tips from this thread: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/guide-testing-the-new-airflow-visualization/549454

Quote

You will notice a red dot at one end of each line. That dot signifies where the particle started in the CFD simulation, so it will tell you the direction from which the air is moving. The length of the line represents the speed of the wind.

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[lwt1971 7,987]

From the official forums, a visualization below of airflow within a storm... @Cpt_Piett didn't realize how the weather debug window shows so much of info and all the aspects being simulated that contribute to overall weather and airflow! (air density based on temperature, sunlight received in watts per meter^2, various turbulence/drafts characteristics and impacting factors, etc). Have you also tried to enable one or more of the "Weather Simulation Voxel", "CFD Simulation running", "CFD Simulation reinjecting" checkboxes and see what impacts they have? It'd be interesting to see that with aircrafts that don't have CFD enabled in their FMs.. I have a feeling this new atmospherics/weather/airflow CFD-driven simulation impacts all aircraft whether they have local CFD enabled in their FMs or not .  Hoping Asobo updates the SDK docs soon to cover and explain all this new stuff.

Edited October 15, 2022 by lwt1971

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

It would be difficult for them to modify it too much without messing up how the 3rd party planes fly, since every plane has a different type of error in their flight modeling, that's the real issue. Maybe it can be done regardless, no idea really.

Before doing this, they should fix the issues that exist with so many planes where the planes start pivoting straight up into the air, or the bug where like a magnet it brings you to the ground (which requires reloading the plane or restarting the flight usually).

Edited October 15, 2022 by Alpine Scenery

[lwt1971 7,987]

9 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

It would be difficult for them to modify it too much without messing up how the 3rd party planes fly, since every plane has a different type of error in their flight modeling, that's the real issue. Maybe it can be done regardless, no idea really.

 

Ya if it's independent of aircraft FMs, then I'm thinking the new CFD driven simulation of the atmosphere ultimately delivers a net effect on airflow and drafts which then impacts any aircraft per usual (just that this new airflow within 20km cocoon around the aircraft is much more detailed than before, is based on CFD math, and is impacted by various new factors including terrain shape and world scenery/objects). That is, the shape/geometry of the aircraft and other aircraft specific factors don't come into play here probably unless its FM has CFD enabled. Have a feeling the helicopters and gliders they'll release will have local CFD.

Edited October 15, 2022 by lwt1971

[Cpt_Piett 4,963]

1 hour ago, lwt1971 said:

Have you also tried to enable one or more of the "Weather Simulation Voxel", "CFD Simulation running", "CFD Simulation reinjecting" checkboxes and see what impacts they have? It'd be interesting to see that with aircrafts that don't have CFD enabled in their FMs..

This is "Weather Simulation Voxel", "CFD Simulation running", "CFD Simulation reinjecting" (incl. a wind vector) with the modded DA40-NGX. 

1 hour ago, lwt1971 said:

I have a feeling this new atmospherics/weather/airflow CFD-driven simulation impacts all aircraft whether they have local CFD enabled in their FMs or not .

I'm not sure - I haven't seen anything yet to either prove or disprove this. Nevertheless, it's mightily impressive to have access to all these data in a $60 desktop simulator. 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[lwt1971 7,987]

33 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

This is "Weather Simulation Voxel", "CFD Simulation running", "CFD Simulation reinjecting" (incl. a wind vector) with the modded DA40-NGX. 

:
:

I'm not sure - I haven't seen anything yet to either prove or disprove this. Nevertheless, it's mightily impressive to have access to all these data in a $60 desktop simulator. 

Thanks for checking!, and indeed is quite impressive