Hello,
my current setup includes FSX, ActiveSky 2012 (AS2012), and FSBuild 2.4.024 b274.
"Technically", they all play together nicely, this is
not the traditional "pointing to correct folder" question...
While FSB builds a plan it duly reports "Retr AS6 winds...etc" (I am assuming the "AS6" is just a "historical" left-over, and OK even when using AS2012?).
It also seems that the winds aloft from AS2012 are in principle included in the FSB plans indeed: the values as seen in the FSB navlog are "roughly" correct.
However, what bothers me is that there are still quite noticeable discrepancies between the wind speeds of AS2012 and those shown in FSB.
To check this more precisely, I created a route in FSB (EDDL-GCTS), exported it (*.pln format), then imported it in AS2012, and compared, waypoint for waypoint, the wind values in the FSB navlog with those shown in AS2012. I used FL340 as cruise altitude because this altitude is directly visible in AS2012, no interpolation needed; and I included only those waypoints at cruise level. (Discrepancies for the climb and descent phase are to be expected, as FSB and AS2012 may use different performance and climb/descent rate values for interpolation).
The outcome is that the numbers agree "roughly", as said, but the remaining discrepancies are too big to be overlooked, certainly not just rounding errors or such.
E.g. at 11 waypoints (out of 30 waypoints compared), the
wind direction in FSB differed by more than 10° from that in AS2012; and for 8 waypoints, the
wind speed difference was greater than 10 kn, which to me seems not negligible. See the graphics below for details; they show the differences (FSBvalue - AS2012value).
So, why is FSB not actually using (or showing in the navlog) the precise same values (give or take) as in AS2012?
Or is this an expectation based on wrong assumptions?
Moreover, is there any other way than described above to find out which weather (wind) values FSB is actually using?
BTW, earlier I have made similar comparisons frequently for FS2004/AS6.5/FSB, and in that setup always found only minor discrepancies between AS and FSB, easily explained by rounding errors and such.
Note that I am well aware these are all wind predictions anyway, which may or may not be correct (as in Real Life!).
I am not complaining about lack of precision. My goal is rather to make sure that I am using the FSB/AS2012 combo correctly and most efficiently.
Thanks for any comments or tips!
Cheers,
Martin
PS. As an afterthought: Could the issue be that waypoints are not necessarily also actual weather stations?
And both FSB and AS2012 have to interpolate from the latter, and do this in different ways?
FSBvsAS2012_dir.jpg [ 25.83 KiB | Viewed 9657 times ]
FSBvsAS2012_speed.jpg [ 29.12 KiB | Viewed 9657 times ]