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PSXAloft II : new upper wind and turbulence simulation for PSX

Started by JP59, Wed, 14 Oct 2015 13:27

JP59

Quote from: Derek Adam on Mon, 19 Oct 2015 04:40
My feeling is that the information from and to ASN is not being transferred to ASN activeflightplanwx. It is only 1kb in size and no information within the file.

Derek,

Please download again Beta 4. I added some lines of code to avoid PSXAloft to crash when the activeflightplanwx file template is invalid. It will only give you an error message in the Wx File status field. Let me know if you get this message.

Regards,

JP59

Merci Charles for your report. You're right. PSXAloft has 10 5000ft height layers from 0 to 45000ft. It determines which of the layer corresponds with your current altitude and loads the corresponding one's wind and OAT data.

If you flew at 390, PSXAloft should load winds for 40000ft layer, which should be very close to your flight plan predictions.

However, if you just reached your TOC, you may still have the climb winds loaded within PSXAloft, which can be a little bit different with predictions.

- Did you see big differences during all your cruise ? What happened after you overflow the first cruise waypoint available within the activeflightplanwx file ?

- What was exactly the difference ? Small differences are normal. PSXAloft was designed to let a little difference between predictions and actual winds, like in the real world.

- Did you build your flight plan with PFPX ? If yes, did you feed PFPX with ASN ?

Next time, please also copy/paste the debug window content within a txt file, in order to investigate easier.

Cheers,

tango4

-it was definitely not my climb wind. Each time I overflow a waypoint it adjusted the wind according to the table, but using the wrong FL.
-the difference was perhaps 10 to 15kt, not that much, but it's just is was PRECISELY the values from the layer above each time.
-I used PFPX but as this was a test flight just for PSX weather I used activesky directly during the flight. I loaded the flight plan in active sky and kept it open during the flight on this page so it displayed the weather brief according to the file it generated. That's where I saw FL440. I think active sky does not generate this table with fixed FL, the levels depend on your cruise level, but as you say in 5000ft increment. Meaning my cruise being FL390 it generated a table for each point with FL340 390 AND 440. Had my cruise been 400 I guess it would have generated 350 400 and 450. I'll try and run some more tests when I have time and will report back.

tango4

And sorry for the formatting of my last post, I realize it is just awful, I'm writing on my phone !

Hardy Heinlin

Just a thought ...

There is a difference between the true altitude from the PSX server and the altitude on the PFD/AFDS/FMC which varies with the local zone's QNH if STD/FL is used (i.e. if the local QNH is not set on the instruments).

If the add-on doesn't gradually interpolate between data layers, there may be a jump at the border of the layers, and there may be even the wrong layer in use if the QNH/STD difference is large.


Cheers,

|-|ardy


JP59

Need to investigate further at the ASN side. Unfortunately I am very busy with my job this time. Thank you in advance for your patience.

Regards,

J D ADAM

Hi Jean-Phillipe

QuotePlease download again Beta 4. I added some lines of code to avoid PSXAloft to crash when the activeflightplanwx file template is invalid. It will only give you an error message in the Wx File status field. Let me know if you get this message.


Yes "no FL active"

The question I now have is:-  Whilst setting up a flight plan how does the resulting weather get to activeflightplanner.txt. Does it go via the export function or is it automatic?
I have PFPX set up to use ASN weather.

Cheers
Derek

JP59

Quote from: Derek Adam on Mon, 19 Oct 2015 23:23
The question I now have is:-  Whilst setting up a flight plan how does the resulting weather get to activeflightplanner.txt. Does it go via the export function or is it automatic?

ASN should fill the activeflightplanwx.txt file automatically when you load a flight plan within ASN interface. No need to confirm or export anything.

Maybe you should see with ASN support what's wrong.

Regards,

J D ADAM

Hello Jean-Phillipe,
                              Is it necessary to set up simconnect within AS either direct or networked?

Other fine members of this forum who have written fine addons to PSX have learned that it is usually me who have the most problems.  However I will plug along.

Cheers
Derek

JP59

Quote from: G-CIVA on Thu, 15 Oct 2015 09:42
Reading data from a 'static' file will come with some significant disadvantages.

Obviously the 744 is capable of flights of in excess of 12 hours, in this time 'Spot Winds' at altitude will 'change'.

PFPX does a fantastic job of predicting this 'change' to within a tolerance of 5-10% when set to download WX from the RW source.

ASN also does a fantastic job of matching this 'change' to within a tolerance of 5-10% when set to download WX from ASN server (which BTW matches what the PFPX WX server 'spits out' very closely).

By limiting what sounds like an excellent programme to only using a 'Spot Wind' 'snapshot' surely you are selling the capability of your efforts a little short.  Are you not able to just let your programme connect to ASN, inject the required data into PSX & then run happily in the background injecting live wind data into PSX on the fly?

Hello. I was thinking about Steve's comment and posted on ASN forum. I had a discussion with some ASN developers. It seems the activeflightplanwx file is updated at every new ASN snapshot download (last comment developer said he checked the ASN code and confirmed). I think it answers the question about having "old" weather data from PSXAloft after 12 hours of flight. If you setup ASN to auto refresh say, every 30 minutes, you'll get a "fresh" activeflightplanwx file every 30 minutes, and PSXAloft will inject those fresh data. Will try to check this afternoon if I can have some hours to definitively confirm. Edit : I ran the test and I can confirm activeflightplanwx file is automatically updated with fresh data at every ASN snapshot download. PSXAloft is always fed with fresh data, even after several hours of flight.

Here is the link to ASN forum : http://www.hifisimtech.com/forums/showthread.php?5228-Is-activeflightplanwx-file-updated

Cheers,

JP59

Quote from: Derek Adam on Tue, 20 Oct 2015 06:13
Other fine members of this forum who have written fine addons to PSX have learned that it is usually me who have the most problems.  However I will plug along.

No problem Derek. I will be very happy to help you but I am not an ASN "expert". I am not sure it needs Simconnect for "local" situation (ASN and FSX/P3D on the same computer). I would say yes. What is your setup ? Are ASN and FSX/P3D on the same computer ?

Again, if you get an empty activeflightplanwx file, it is an ASN issue, I'm sorry. It should generate the file even when not connected with anything.

Cheers,

JP59

Quote from: tango4 on Mon, 19 Oct 2015 15:18
When reaching cruise level, the winds did not correspond to the ones I had in the flightplan.
This was a flight from LFPG to LFBO at FL390. I investigated a bit and found that the winds injected were precisely the winds in my activeskywx file, but from the layer above ! It corresponded precisely to the winds at FL440 (I think it is 440, but I don't have active sky in front of me, but it was definitely the active sky layer above my cruise level). It felt like there was some sort of "offset" in the file.

Hello. Beta 5 is up. It corrects the above problem which came from a wrong layer setup within PSXAloft. Thank you Charles for your contribution.

Cheers,

J D ADAM

Hi Jean-Phillipe,

Eureka   Have got your fine program working, after many many hours of trying many things.  Whether it is correctly interpreting winds from the flight plan is yet to be proven, because of my work around!!

On the 'weather mode panel of ASNFSX is a button "save weathermode" and I suddenly have 3807kb of info in the activeflightplanner.txt.

Your program loads perfectly and shows " Below FL1" which is self explanatory.

Golf today, but tomorrow I will see if my work around works around!

Thank you for your ongoing help

and

Kindest regards

Derek

JP59

Hi Derek,

I'm happy to see it is ok now. I don't know about this button within ASN. Always had a new activeflightplanwx file when loading a new flight plan, without pressing any button here.

Which version (build) of ASN do you use ?

If you are on the ground, it is normal PSXAloft shows "Below FL1" which is in fact 6000ft which is the first "layer". Don't forget to refresh WX within PSXAloft when you set the target cruise altitude within PSX FMC in order to configure the winds properly for the climb. PSXAloft will detect this change and display a reminder message. Working on an automatic function which will do it for you automatically.

Cheers,

J D ADAM

Good Morning Jean-phillipe,

Well so much for my excitement in getting  things to work#%^##^@^

Everything worked soooo well initially:-
Below Fl1
FL2 Active
Load TOC weather info
Fl7 Climb
Then boom    invalid wx file template. Check file  :(

So PSPX is not passing on the flight plan to activeflightplanner.txt although it  is specified in "Configure Weather settings" in PSPX.

I am using Build 5751 in ASN.

Cheers
Derek

JP59

Quote from: Derek Adam on Wed, 21 Oct 2015 22:09
Then boom    invalid wx file template. Check file  :(

So PSPX is not passing on the flight plan to activeflightplanner.txt although it  is specified in "Configure Weather settings" in PSPX.

I am using Build 5751 in ASN.

Hello. Please send me a copy of the activeflightplanwx file in question. PFPX has nothing to do with PSXAloft.

Regards,

CarlBB

Hi,

Mine worked ok once, and ever since a new activeflightplanwx was generated for the same route, just difference time, I am also seeing "invalid wx file template" no matter what I try.

Can send to you later if this helps?

Thanks for developing this  :)

Carl

JP59

Hello Carl,

Does PSXAloft hangs or crashes after the message is displayed ? I had a quick look at the code and I think I introduced a bug with this new function  :) . Send the file in question if possible.

Regards,

JP59

Hello Again,

Beta 6 is ready but not already online. As it is a major update, I need to do a full test flight, maybe tomorrow, in order to test the new functionalities, like the wind/OAT data injection when doing a route and descent forecast datalink request in the FMC ! (Thank you Hardy for your very detailed description about how to decode and modify RTE DATA).

Bug concerning wx file template should be corrected, I think I found where the bug came from, but I would like you send me the wx file which caused the error in order to make a second check.

If everything works fine, I think I will be able to upload Beta 6 tomorrow or saturday.

Thank you all for your patience.

Cheers,


Hessel Oosten

Jean-philippe,

But...., may I suggest... ;) to do it slow and take your time.

Everyone is very gratefull/reconnaissant for your efforts.
And it's important than -you too- have fun in the mean time.

Hessel