METAR Templates for DCS Weather Profiles

[Nealius]

When it comes to planning aircraft performance I become frustrated at the lack of relevant weather information in mission briefings, especially in regards to QNH and cloud height/wind speed units. I took all of the pre-set weather profiles in the Mission Editor ("Summer, clouds and wind" for example), converted all the numbers, and created METARs in both ICAO and FAA formats for all of them.

 

Hopefully this will be useful to mission creators so they can put these METARs in the mission brief. All you have to do is replace the [ ] with the ICAO airport code and replace ( ) with the date and time. If you change any values like wind direction/speed, cloud coverage/height, etc. you can simply edit those in there as well, but you may have to do some conversions.

 

Download here

[GRUNT -Shrek-]

When it comes to planning aircraft performance I become frustrated at the lack of relevant weather information in mission briefings, especially in regards to QNH and cloud height/wind speed units

 

Download here

 

I worked on that in the wiki. It's up to the mission builder to make his/her mission a quality one. Many pilots don't care about weather, so only few people seek detailed information. In defense:

 

• flying an A-10C you have the weather readout in your system (ext temp.)
  
• wind is done by ATC
  
• cloud boundaries/alt/height/density/perception can be visually obtained (as of other pilot's enroute weather reports)
  

For those interested:

 

 

http://en.wiki.eagle.ru/wiki/Mission_Editor:_Weather_Modelling

[Bourrinopathe]

Thanks a lot for your work. Both of you. :thumbup:

For those (like me) who are not familiar with the METAR: feel free to check Wikipedia.

 

I already used the informations from the wiki, and a visual reference helped a lot while creating my first training mission.

And I really didn't want to test the mission for each clouds density value.

A fog visual reference could be a nice addition to the wiki.

I'll try to take some screenshots during my tests.

[EAKMotorsports]

will be great if the dcs have an better support on weather, more detailed/complex weather system, but I dont think that will be out soon.

[Nealius]

I worked on that in the wiki. It's up to the mission builder to make his/her mission a quality one. Many pilots don't care about weather, so only few people seek detailed information. In defense:

 

• flying an A-10C you have the weather readout in your system (ext temp.)
  
• wind is done by ATC
  
• cloud boundaries/alt/height/density/perception can be visually obtained (as of other pilot's enroute weather reports)
  

 

That's great info, but when planning aircraft performance--or a flight in general--you need temperature, wind, pressure, runway conditions, etc. before you ever step into the cockpit. DCS has no way to automatically generate that information pre-mission. You can't sit there with the engines running, pull out a chart and a ruler and start calculating takeoff speed, climb time, fuel burn, etc. after calling the tower. Cloud cover is also important pre-mission so you can determine how your attack run will be played out, and that info is given (along with wind) automatically in the mission brief but it is in the wrong units and conversion can be quite annoying. Pressure is also given not only in the wrong units in the ME but also the wrong altimeter setting by the tower.

 

*By "wrong" I mean that it does not conform to the majority of aviation standards, especially coming from a USAF perspective.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Nealius

[Gosling]

The links in the first two posts no. Longer seem to work.  May we have updated links please…

Edited July 19, 2022 by Gosling

[Nealius]

17 hours ago, Gosling said:

The links in the first two posts no. Longer seem to work.  May we have updated links please…

 

The document appears to no longer exist on my Drive. No idea what happened to it, but these weather presets are no longer applicable in DCS 2.7 with the new weather engine. Some day I might make METAR templates for our new weather presets since the METAR notation in the mission editor does not have correct cloud coverage notated.