VoxATC and dynamic weather (FSGRW, Opus, ASN)?

[Jarkko 59]

Hello,

 

I have been using VoxATC for quite a long time, but only recently started using it with FSGRW. That is when my problems with "wrong" STARs and tailwind landings started.

 

Based on what I have read here on avsim, VoxATC seems to "lock in" the destination weather when you first lauch ProATC. This seems to be quite strange and would explain my problems.

 

When I have the FSGRW injected to FSX before I launch VoxATC, there is no weather available at my destination. It will only be set, when I get about 100nm from my destination. I have confirmed this with Aivlasoft's EFB.

 

This causes VoxATC to report wrong weather in the arrival airport ATIS even after FSGRW has injected the real world weather (checked by having FSX ATIS and VoxATC play at the same time). Of course, in this situation, VoxATC assigns me the incorrect runway based on the "missing" weather info (during VoxATC start).

 

I seem to remember, that the situation was quite similar with Opus. The difference was that my destination airport had the origin airport weather set until I was about 100nm away from my destination.

 

Last but not least ASN. I haven't upgraded my AS2012 to ASN (yet), but how does ASN work with VoxATC do you experience similar problems as I'm having with FSGRW and Opus?

 

One more thing. I know, that many weather engines output the weather in a file, where external programs (like VoxATC) could read the weather that will be eventually injected into FSX. Would it be possible for VoxATC to read the weather from the weather engine generated files? This would remove the weather engine injection problems all together?

 

Thank you for the help!

 

- Jarkko

[daan_vb 26]

Hi Jarkko,

 

ASN is exactly the same unfortunately and i am having the same issues as your are. Its quite frustrating one aspect of VOX that I really don't like which is a shame because the program as a whole is superb.

 

I have emailed the creator Tegwyn and he says there is no workaround or fix for this as present but I have read that restarting VOX just prior to TOD might fix the issue for now. Not had a chance to try out the theory myself yet though. As to whether he will eventually add the function to read the weather file I'm not sure, but it would be marvellous if he did.

[nam1394 10]

It is the same with ASN. As I mentioned on the other thread, the only solution is to restart VOXATC.

[vonmar 122]

It is the same with ASN. As I mentioned on the other thread, the only solution is to restart VOXATC.

 

Does this VOXatc restart cause any problems with your aircraft currently in flight?

 

Any problems syncing up again with VOXatc to continue the current flight?

 

I look for your previous "thread" but could not locate it.

[mwilk 1,104]

Does this problem exist with all ATC programs or just VOX?

[Jarkko 59]

Does this problem exist with all ATC programs or just VOX?

 

This is a problem for all ATC programs, that dynamically assign STARs based on winds (and read the weather inside FSX, instead of the weather engine's/NOAA's/Vatsim's output file).

[nam1394 10]

This is a problem for all ATC programs, that dynamically assign STARs based on winds (and read the weather inside FSX, instead of the weather engine's/NOAA output file).

No, I own RC, PFE and PROATCX. And I never have this problem with them.

[Jarkko 59]

No, I own RC, PFE and PROATCX. And I never have this problem with them.

 

No, RC doesn't assign you STARs at all and ProATC has ability to read the weather outside of FSX so my statement should still be valid. FWIW I own and use all of the mentioned ATC programs.

[nam1394 10]

Does this VOXatc restart cause any problems with your aircraft currently in flight?

 

Any problems syncing up again with VOXatc to continue the current flight?

 

I look for your previous "thread" but could not locate it.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/445169-any-good-atc-addons/page-2 post #30

 

No it doesn't.

No, RC doesn't assign you STARs at all and ProATC has ability to read the weather outside of FSX so my statement should still be valid. FWIW I own and use all of the mentioned ATC programs.

Yeah, but you don't have a problem with them in regards wrong weather.

[Jarkko 59]

 

 

Yeah, but you don't have a problem with them in regards wrong weather.

 

Except for the fact that ProATC support forum's most talked about subject is wrong runway assignments (especially on airports without SIDs and STARs).

[nam1394 10]

I haven't used it that much. But every time I did, I set it(proatcx)to read weather directly from the weather engine and never had a problem. As for other add ons, it is never an issue.

[solvair 0]

It's a real shame to restart voxatc to achieve correct winds, substract all grace. Sometimes, the STAR star before ~ 100 nm, so the assignment of STAR may not be good.

[vonmar 122]

IMO, weather programs like ActiveSky should be able to give VOXatc all airports ATIS information and place it in a specific folder for VOXatc to use during our flights.

Currently this is possible for SID and STARs.
Ever Navdata cycle changes the SID / Star database for all airports.

VOXatc needs this information and per the manual tells the pilot to set up a path to the SID/STAR data :

For VoxATC to use the Navdata SIDs and STARs, the path to the Navdata folder must be set. Go t
Start – All Programs – VoxATC X – Advanced settings. The Advanced Settings form is displayed.
Click the Browse button and navigate to the folder that contains the Navdata files. This is likely to
be C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Level-D Simulations\navdata.

It seems to me the same thing could be done for ATIS information.

 

Edit:

The raw ATIS is available on the internet also. Active sky has to get the raw data so I would guess VOXatc could also.

[Jarkko 59]

Correct. There are multiple places, where VoxATC could get the weather from.

 

The most likely is the NOAA as it is the place where most of the weather engines get their METARs from. The data from NOAA is in a nicely formated xml file with the winds, temperatures and visibility in their own fields so minimal parsing required.

 

Has anyone already pitched this idea to the developer?

[KenVerburg 23]

Wouldn't it be possible for VoxAtc to read the 'current_wx_snapshot.txt' file ASN generates? Unless Vox will simply not recalculate the route apart from when it's starting up.