ARNZ X - Weather Radar

Review and Screenshots by Jon Murchison

Overview & Background

Weather, the thorn in the side of aviation since its inception. Luckily for pilots and the travelling public advances in technology have seen modern aircraft able to operate in pretty much all conditions. One of the primary reasons for this is the weather radar. Radar in general started life during WWII and it was during this time that operators noticed 'returns' from snow, sleet and rain. After the war as radar evolved so its potential in weather forecasting became apparent and it was only a matter of time before earth bound stationary facilities were adapted to allow installation on aircraft. Under the nose of the majority of modern airliners can be found a flat radar dish that is forever scanning for weather.

Radar is an incredibly thing using complex equations to allow distances in space and density of water to become a reading that actually means something to a pilot using it, who can then chart a course through the weather to avoid thunder storms and turbulence. In essence radar is about firing microwave beams from the radar forwards and then 'listening' to the returns. Because microwave beams travel at the speed of light this process of fire, bounce listen happens many times each second and as a result an image is drawn on the weather radar screen that paints a picture of what's in front of an aircraft from .5 up to 250km's away.


Boeing 757-200	C-130 Hercules

In FSX weather radar is not something that has come out of the box, in fact no version of Microsoft Flight simulator has ever approached this aspect of aviation even though the weather models and way weather is rendered ihas evolved dramatically both technically and visibly. FSX has arguably the most complex and realistic weather generation so far and can provide immense challenges for pilots if they so wish. Captain Sim have taken a step sideways from aircraft development to fill the gap and produce an add-on that interacts with FSX weather in real time and in an accurate way based on cloud type. While they are not the first to produce a weather radar they have come up with something that has the potential to change the way virtual pilots fly and adds yet another layer of immersion to FSX, particularly for the jet jockeys amongst us.

Installation

I'll cover this in two phases because first you have the installation process onto your computer, and then you have the process of installing the radar into your aircraft themselves. The Captain Sim weather radar is a very small download file, less than 3MB and comes as an auto installer. Double clicking this starts the process off and once I had provided the information and key required to allow installation the whole process was over in a few minutes. I downloaded the PDF manual as a separate file. This is 17 pages and provides some in depth detail on the principles of radar, how to operate the radar itself as it has various buttons and knobs, pre and in-flight information to set it up and use it effectively and finally how to use the information the radar supplies to help you plot a course through the weather.

Adding the weather radar to any FSX aircraft was simplicity itself using the supplied editing tool found through the start menu. Using a drop down menu I simply selected the aircraft I wanted to install the radar into from this list, and this does include all aircraft you have installed from default FSX to Captain Sim or any other's, and with a click of the install button the radar is added. This has got to be the simplest install process I have encountered and what's even better is you simply reverse the process to uninstall.


Default FSX A321 without..	..and with.	Captain Sim 757 without	.... and now with.

Weather Radar - What the buttons do

My testing of the weather radar would take place in the default FSX 737-800 during a flight from Amsterdam to Nantes Atlantique in France. I set the weather to be stormy so I would get a true idea of what these conditions would look like and knew from wat6ching the video Captain Sim have produced on their website this would give me good readings. Sitting on the ground in Amsterdam I booted the radar up and for the first few minutes a warm-up and test process is worked through by the radar before it is ready for operation. From a purely functional point of view the radar is straight forward to operate with 9 switches and knobs that allow you to make adjustments to what information is displayed. On the left is a brightness knob that as the name suggests adjusts the brightness of the radar to suit time of day etc. Below this are two buttons that allow you to select either static weather Wx or dynamic weather display WxA. That's my way of saying if the WxA button is pushed the heavy rain or storm cells, they are the ones you really want to avoid, will flash between magenta and black. This is handy as it catches the eye and is a warning of bad things ahead, when just the Wx button is pushed these don't flash. At the bottom on the left is the on/off switch and a test mode. On the right is where most of the action happens. The top knob is gain and this is the one that determines what level of reading you will get. The thing with weather radar is its looking for moisture, so if you are nose down in descent and both a storm cloud and lake is ahead you want to make sure you get a reading on the cloud, so gain allows you to adjust this. STAB means the radar dish itself will adjust based on your rate of climb, descent and bank angle so what the radar sees is a reflection of your aircrafts position. If I was descending at 15^o and the radar was set for a tilt of -2^o, the angle of return is actually 17^o so my radar return is not accurate based on my angle, STAB resolves this. The two buttons below STAB allow you to adjust the range the radar will look ahead, this can be between 2.5 and 320 miles ahead of the aircraft. The bottom knob adjusts the tilt of the radar dish, very handy for looking above and below depending on what phase of flight you are in.


Off	Warm-up and Test	Initial Replies Up 6.7^o	10 Mile View

Weather Radar - Testing

Sitting at the gate in Amsterdam I initially set the radar displaying a 10 mile radius with the beam pointing upwards 6.7^o, the picture while visually appealing was not pretty because I could see I would be facing some pretty serious storm cells. The weather radar uses colors to signal moisture density, green is ok, yellow is heavier, red is very heavy and purple is avoid at all costs. How the weather radar actually works is a mystery because we need to remember the clouds in FSX are graphics that have no moisture in them, so how Captain Sim have managed to get the radar to identify and then display them is very clever. My only frustration with the weather radar happened while I was at the gate and I discovered there was no easy way to bring the radar window up in VC mode. I was originally going to do this flight in the Captain Sim 757 but because it has so many pop up 2D windows it was near impossible to get the radar to come up easily. For aircraft with fewer 2D components this wasn't an issue but for the high detail heavies there needs to be a way to either add a button to the 2D panel or embed the weather radar in an aircrafts VC to avoid this.

On the taxi to the runway I adjusted the settings a increasing the range and lowering the angle to 1^o allowing me to see the weather was pretty rotten for most of my journey at lower altitudes, time would tell what things would look like once I was in the cruise. I lowered the angle to zero and reduced the range and as I did I could see the display change to reflect the fact I was no longer looking up into the clouds. The radar scope for want of a better word to describe it phases left and right as the dish rotates side to side, so the display updates accordingly as you make adjustments. Once I was airborne and turned on the AP to fly my flightplan for me I was able to make some visual comparisons between what the radar was telling me and what I could see in both the 2D panel view and from outside the aircraft. With the radar aimed up 2^o and climbing through 8000 feet it was clear the heavier storm cells were at lower altitudes and once I broke through the clouds the radar rapidly started to clear. From outside I sighted fairly large cells to the right of my journey and I could see these on the radar, and quite correctly they were some distance away. Climbing all the time I lowered the scan angle to zero and was greeted with a blank screen. Ahead were no clouds and I knew I was in the clear for the next 80 miles or so.


Nasty Weather Ahead	Strom Cells Breaking Up	Precipitation to the Right	Clear Skies

Trip and Weather	Comparison 1	Comparison 2	Clear ahead...for now

As we know weather is changeable and by regularly adjusting the tilt I was able to keep an eye on the weather below me. Part of this was testing but I was also mindful that sooner or later I was going to need to descend back into the soup and I wanted to avoid the worst of it that I could. That last sentence sums up this product, its simplicity and ease of use meant I had already integrated the information the weather radar was giving me within a few minutes of starting to use it and as a result it had influenced my thinking so I was already using it as the tool it was intended to be. At FL300 I was well above the weather but if we look at the comparison 1 and 2 screenshots above we can see how the radar paints a picture. In Comparison 1 I was looking at cloud cover ahead with storm cells to the right, this you can see in the form of the huge cumulous cloud to the right of the aircraft with its tops at around FL350. In comparison 2 by lowering the radar by 2^o I could see the local cloud break directly in front of me, but the towering clouds to my left clearly had high levels of precipitation and likely turbulence. Luckily my flightpath was already taking me past both but they show clearly how the radar can be used to plot your course ahead based on the readings it is displaying.


Clear	Storm Cells at 195^o	Approaching trouble?	Broken Cloud

Scattered Rain Cloud	Fair Weather	Cold Fronts	Stormy Weather

From a performance point of view I didn't notice anything different having the radar operating. Naturally if you have weather systems running that slow your system down then that wont change but I would suggest the radar will have little if any effect on your average computer. The cloud layer broke sufficiently to allow me to descend and make my approach at Nantes without passing through cloud, I was able to do this by using the tilt and range functions that enabled me to plan early for my descent. The final portion of my flight was relatively smooth, the radar revealed the worst of the weather was some distance away and at higher altitudes so my experience on the approach was normal, just the way airline operations like it to be.

I spent time in a second aircraft this time the Aircraft Factory: F4U Corsair flying in and around Wanaka. I varied the weather using default FSX themes starting out with fair weather. I noted the radar quite accurately captured the scattered cloud in the region. Adjusting the weather to cold fronts the number of responses for each radar ping increased and reminded me that the radar itself is looking for moisture, so it wont get a reply on every cloud I could see. This can be a little disconcerting especially to begin with because often I could see clouds but the radar is showing a clear screen. Once I changed the settings to stormy weather the intensity of returns increased quite dramatically and I was faced with a number of areas that were flashing magenta advising intense activity. While the Corsair proved to be an effective test vehicle it did highlight for me that weather radar is best suited for larger aircraft that are choosing to fly a specific course from point A to point B.

FINAL WORDS & RATING

Overall I'm pretty impressed with the Captain Sim weather radar and apart from the integration issues I mentioned at the start, I had no other technical problems with it. I'm very impressed with the way it interacts with the weather in FSX and presents that information on the radar screen. I found it remarkably accurate as long as I remembered how radar works and what the intention of weather radar actually is. This isn't a radar designed to track objects, it looks at clouds and determines their density and from that paints a picture of the likely intensity of activity. Used in context and seen as an accurate devise, the weather radar can transform your flying. If its not understood then it may seem like a waste of time. Considering its simulating this activity and pinging objects that have no moisture content at all, I think its very cool.

The weather radar gauge itself is clear and integrates well on 2D panels and seems particularly well suited for the 737 and A321. The ease of install is great so users can quickly get into using it without the hassle of trying to install manually. The documentation is very thorough and provides ample detail to ensure users understand what the radar will and wont do and how to use it. I do recommended people read the manual first. I can highly recommend the Captain Sim weather radar to virtual pilots who are a little more serious about there flying, its ideal for those who like flying heavy metal but will work eqully well for the smaller types doing point to point flying. I award the Captain Sim weather Radar an X-Rating of 5.