The #1 Weather Engine for FS2004 just got even better!

Reviews

Did You Know?

Web Reviews:

ActiveSky 5 Review by Grahame Myers at SimFlight

ActiveSky 5 Review by Tom Camarda at FlightSim Network (www.fsimnetwork.com)

ActiveSky 5 Review at FSZone

Awards for the previous version:

A Few Testimonials:

Hi all, just did a flight from Klax to Klas and what a wonderful flight it was. The weather displayed by ASV was absolutely wonderful and coupled with the new 747 and FDC made it really as real as it could get. I mean how much more can things improve. I really don't know.

Cheers Nels

Hi No problems here . Would just like to inform you of my first flight with ASV5.  I had just left CYKF Kitchener Ontario, at approx 1600 Local for a flight to Halifax Nova Scotia in a Raytheon Premier 1.  My next waypoint was YYZ at Toronto Pearson.  At Pearson on Autopilot, I would have been at FL220 and was passing through FL 160 when all H (eck) broke loose.

I had been admiring the lightning flashes all around me and not paying attention to my Reality XP weather Radar. The Premier had been bouncing all over the sky Suddenly the nose pitched down and I was accellerating nose down and approaching 350 KTS indicated.  Before I could restore order to my aircraft, cockpit, and heartrate, I had passed through 10'000 feet and and managed to level off at 9000 and VERY small change.

The coincidence of my escapade and reality closed in the next afternoon. Air France 358 had Towering Cu problems on landing, at almost the same time, 24 hours later and within 5 miles of my happenstance!

I have used other realworld weather programs, even one of your earlier versions, and NEVER encountered any thing like the reality of your latest program. From the textures to the vertical air movement, it is as real as I've ever flown on a sim. Just watching the outside view, and seeing my aircraft porpoise, on simulated air currents, and not mearly rock from side to side, is a pleasure.

Had to thank you for my experiences and joy,
Richard Bowman

Hi,
I would like to use this opportunity to congratuate you guys on the excellent ASV programme you developed!!! For the first time I really like flying in cloudy weather etc. due to the fact that ASV makes it feel SO real. As a South African I used to select only weathe indicating CAVOK from my offline mode files as we here in South Africa Are sun loving people!!! Now,however, I like flying in places like British Columbia and Europe where there is a lot of variation in the weather, and thus lots of cloudy,misty weather !!

Keep up the good work!
Arthur Smith

I just wanted to say WOW regarding HiFi Sim's new release ActiveSky Version 5. Fastastic job guys!

Last night, I was flying from KHIE to KBGR in my trusty Carenado C182RG (with modified King Avionics Panel) using real weather conditions. It was beautiful flying weather - low ceilings and visibility, precipitation, and possibility of icing - my kind of flying! My flight plan was V104 at 9000 feet to KBGR. At that altitude I was purposefully flying near the cloud tops . After passing the BERLIN VOR, I found what I was looking for - STRUCTURAL ICING . I have only had this experience once in real life flying and never in MSFS. The aircraft began to slowly loose airspeed and I had to keep adjusting pitch trim to maintain altitude. Finally, I could no longer hold altitude and was descending at full power – any more pitch changes would have lead to a stall. I was never successful at recreating this experience in MSFS before using MSFS weather! This was fantastic!

I recognized the problem long before I began descending but I wanted to see just how far the simulator would take it and it was pretty much what I expected. I notified KBOS center of my situation and requested a lower altitude. Yes - a lower altitude. This is a situation in which LOWER is better (not higher). Why? First, at that point I was descending at full power with my airspeed at 65 knots (~Vx) - I could never attain a higher altitude; Second, I knew from flight planning that temperatures were higher at the lower altitudes and that the precipitation was in water form (but not freezing rain). So, the structural ice would come off quickly.

Weather tip for you: When there is a possibility of icing in the forecast, chance of icing is usually greatest near the tops of clouds because the tops are usually the wettest.

Anyway, for those of you looking for real world challenging weather to flying in I think you should consider ActiveSky Version 5 - it's well worth the investment!

Van Stokes

ASVE was programmed by Damian Clark and graphical texture content was created by Chris Willis.  Support and Usability Design Assistance is provided by Jim Skorna. 

Work first began on developing ActiveSky back in 2001.  The first version (original ActiveSky) was released in early 2002.  Since then, we've released ActiveSky wxRE (December 2002), ActiveSky 2004 (December 2003), ActiveSky 2004.5 (November 2004), ASV (June 2005) and just recently: ASV Enhanced (October 2005).

The ActiveSky private beta team is a core group of approximately 30 members who have been testing the product's various versions since 2002.  They put many hours into testing and interacting with the development team on a daily basis.  Most of them are actual real-world Pilots and all of them have extensive simulation and weather experience.  Several members hold advanced degrees in aeronautics and meteorology.

The various ActiveSky versions have earned numerous awards for Best Flight Sim Add-on Utility and Best Weather Engine.  Our most recent award was given by SimFlight for AS2004 (Best FS Tool).

Damian Clark, Programmer and Lead Developer, is a Commercial Pilot Certificate holder with Multi-Engine and Instrument Ratings.

The HiFi DataNet took over 2 years to develop and consists of 3 separate servers (2 collection/distribution, 1 collection/control).  The system is responsible for collecting weather data automatically from several different sources, synthesizing it into station-based data, archiving snapshots, and providing the real-time or archived data to AS users in a secure (encrypted) and efficient format.  Over 30 gigabytes of weather data are collected and served each day!

(c) 2005 HiFi Simulation Software