Dear members of TeamFusion,
as everybody knows I am a big fan of Clod and a flight enthusiast. I expressed my my thanks and respect for TF many times and I am not happy to criticize a important flaw of the sim, which I'd like to seen solved before TF 5.0 is coming out.
Wind conditions are so crucial in flying which I could hardly imagine myself before I became RL Pilot. They should be considered in a quality-sim like Cliffs as important as in real flying which is unfortunately not the case. Setup of wind direction in Cliffs is so dysfunctional that this aspect of the sim is even not arcade niveau, it is completely broken. As my hope was that this aspect would be addressed by TF in the 4.55 you see me disappointed. I can't say for sure but it seems that in many of my home made SP-missions the wind direction has changed after release, so therefore first I got hope that TF has ironed out it, but nope :-(
Proof: In the editor wind-settings wind direction is set to minus 130°. What ever this of value means (not existing in RL wind rose) it is not SEE, not SWS neither NWW.
Wind Bembridge 2.jpg
Anyway, on the Bembridge Runway 10 (= 100°, East) , wind is coming fairly from the south under theese settings = from the right side.
What does Wind speed 3.00 meaning then? 3 knots, 3 km/h or 3 Beaufort? I have no Idea, because it comes fairly strong as you can see at the windsock blowing horizontally.
Approaching the RW for landing under these conditions you will expect a strong displacement to the left, that direction indicated by the windsock.
Windsock & Smoke 1.jpg
But what happens? As the photos are showing I get an right offset !!! - that is unacceptable for a serious flightsim. Look where I am after touch down! Pardon, this is ridiculous.
Landing approach Wind right 1.jpgLanding approach Wind right 2.jpgLanding approach Wind right 3.jpgLanded Wind right 4.jpg
The windsocks and smoke should help a RL Pilot to judge wind direction and intensity, not so in Cliff, smoke from fire is just going up vertically, it is only decoration and that is arcade.
Windsock & Smoke 2.jpg
The best wind & weather setting I know in a sim (except X-plane, which I don't have) is in Condor 2, the famous soaring simulator. Every wind and thermal aspect like direction, intensity, activity, gusts + variations of all can be setted in every SP-mission and it works terrific good. You don't have to bother with the editor to create a new SP-mission, just to change e.g. wind direction.
Condor Wind.jpgCondor Thermals.jpgCondor Waves.jpgCondor High Clouds.jpg
And BTW, some love for the SU 26 behaviour in that point while taxing would be very appreciated, too, because it is ridiculous to see how a wing is lifted as soon as you take the chocks away.
That said is not to make anybody of the community up setted or blame TF . I just want to give a hint to a real existing problem, which is much more important IMHO than a third contrail smoke. Cliffs is so much, TF is doing so well, but the mentioned flaw above is such a quality killer in my eyes that I am afraid that it could kill the success of TF 5.0, that long expected edition, which shall work smooth and bugless from the very first day and it is should got rid of all the odd issues of the vanilla Cliffs of Dover.
Long live TF, long live Clod & Community
Forgive me,
TG
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