How to deal with thermals and turbulence in MSFS

[Alfredson007]

Since, for the first time in my Sim experience, the Microsoft Flight Simulator has introduced very lively weather. It's both good and it's bad in my opinion but it makes me wonder things i've never wondered before.

For real life -kind of flying, where great updrafts/downdrafts etc indeed are possible, how would a Comanche pilot for example deal with bumpy weather, in terms of engine management.

So if you would encounter a significant downdraft during cruise, having cruise MP, having cruise RPM, having cruise mixture.... would you just add MP briefly and leave other levers untouched? Or would do the whole thing, richen, more rpm, more mp...

If latter, it's going to be laboursome in MSFS.

How do you, especially RL pilots generally feel how realistic the weather in MSFS currently is?

[AKar]

As a gliderist (on an indefinite hiatus unfortunately, having flown only occasionally in twin seaters for past several years), and somewhat a meteorology geek myself, atmospheric simulation of various phenomena in flight simulators is something I tend to have a critical eye over. Sometimes perhaps unfairly so, given these are, after all, intended as computer games.

In my opinion, while visually oftentimes very appealing, the MSFS weather, particularly in what comes to the vertical movements of the air, is not really an overall improvement much at all in comparison to, say, Active Sky + P3D.

How a thermal seemingly works, in both of the mentioned sims actually, is to have a relatively wide and sharply defined area of constant vertical movement. You can see the nonsense in action when flying into one with altitude hold on in just about any P3D/MSFS airplane: entering a thermal, the autopilot rather sharply pitches down a bit to compensate the updraft and the speed starts increasing. This situation is then perfectly stable, often for a good amount of time/distance, and then this effect vanishes. Obviously, was it a downdraft, the effect would be reversed.

In reality, the thermals have far more complex and dynamic structure. They are rather... bubbly things, so to say.

I have not paid any deliberate attention to it in MSFS, but I don't see much logic in thermals' positioning over the land either. At least they seem to prefer land.

As a positive note, the later patches apparently did something to reduce the hilarious (albeit annoying, when trying to land) levitation right up from the ground level. In reality, the thermals at their 'bases' are much more pronounced in lateral gusting than in their vertical component, for most of the time. This is because the rising air can not come from inside the ground, obviously, but it must flow in laterally.

As to your question on how to handle them specifically in what comes to engine controls, I'll leave it to those with more real life hands-on in forced flying to come up with any tips applicable into reality, however, flying naturally aspirated aircraft in the simulator, I generally tend to be cruising at or above 5'000...6'000 ft or so for most of the time, with the throttle already wide-open. So, there is not that much to adjust. I have had wide-enough levitation areas in the simulator so that the aircraft tends to get uncomfortably fast, then I just bring back the throttle some, usually without touching anything else. Should I find myself in an anti-levitation area wide enough to get me worryingly slow, I would consider adding some RPM, depending on where I am already on that.

-Esa

[DHenriques_]

Since, for the first time in my Sim experience, the Microsoft Flight Simulator has introduced very lively weather. It's both good and it's bad in my opinion but it makes me wonder things i've never wondered before.

For real life -kind of flying, where great updrafts/downdrafts etc indeed are possible, how would a Comanche pilot for example deal with bumpy weather, in terms of engine management.

So if you would encounter a significant downdraft during cruise, having cruise MP, having cruise RPM, having cruise mixture.... would you just add MP briefly and leave other levers untouched? Or would do the whole thing, richen, more rpm, more mp...

If latter, it's going to be laboursome in MSFS.

How do you, especially RL pilots generally feel how realistic the weather in MSFS currently is?

Others have commented on the turbulence in the sim.
As for the real world situation, in heavy turbulence the issue is airspeed not settings. You simply slow the aircraft down to below its Va. You can use throttle to assist you in doing that in any way required. No need to adjust either the prop or mixture.
Dudley Henriques

[Michael-C172pilot]

I had planned to do a short flight in our flight clubs C172 in Germany today. Weather was severe cavok, but I decided against.

METAR: EDLW 031350Z 05009KT 360V100 CAVOK 20/02 Q1021

The wather in Dortmund is 9knots from 050 degrees (magnetic, but in Germany magnetic north and true north are 1-3 degs variation, so it doesnt really matter). However, it says 360 V 100, so the wind veers from 360 to 100 degrees. Gusts, while not depicted in the Metar, can be up to 25 kt. Getting a 25kt gust from 360degrees when landing on the 06 in EDLH is no fun.

The wind gets weaker in the evening, so this wind ist mostly caused by thermals today. How do deal with it? Try to be a bit faster when landing (not too much, however), with less flaps. Keeping altitude in 1200 feet in the pattern of EDLH, my home base, is a nightmare in those conditions. But, as I said, while it is possible to fly (weather is fantastic, nil couds here), I decided it is too bumpy for landing for me.

And, to compare the reality to the outstanding FSX C172 - I really think thermals are totally lacking there, and the flare doesnt really fit either. I do not fly MSFS yet, so I cannot really comment on it, but a really realistic simulation of thermals would mean that they get weaker and less vertical when approaching the ground.

[MarcE]

The art of creating a realistic and immersive flight characteristic in flightsim is to find a good compromise between realistic behaviour and controllability. Our greatest disadvantage in the sim is that we only fly visually. All our reactions and control inputs lag behind the actual happening and that‘s why we have a rough ride in the sim. In reality you feel and hear what‘s going on before the aircraft even changes its attitude and you can hold it in place if necessary. In the sim we just correct what has already happened. So my approach to turbs is to tune them down so the plane moves a bit but won‘t be thrown all over the airspace. In MSFS it‘s set to „low“ here. Maybe medium if I fly an airliner. Everthing else is just as unrealistic as completely calm air, regardless how perfectly done turbulences might be.