Wind directions....

[gojozoom]

Hi all,

I'm getting more and more confused about wind directions in FS9. As a results, the other day I landed in tailwind instead of headwind....I rolled off the runway, my passengers were freaking out and screaming,etc etc .

Can you confirm the following? :

The METAR shows you the direction the wind comes FROM, and when you press Shift+Z, FS9 shows you the direction the wind goes TO. If this is correct, is there any way to change FS to show the FROM direction instead of the TO direction?

Cheers guys
Daniel

[GlennAV8R]

The Metar and Shift Z should both show the direction the wind is coming from. ie a northerly will be 360, a southerly 180. I am not aware of any occasions when wind is expressed as the direction to. The only difference you may see is whether it is expressed in degrees true or magnetic. Metars, Tafs and anything issued by the Met Service should be in true, ATIS or anything issued on an airfield is magnetic. The variation for NZ is around 20 degrees East so a heading of 360 True is 340 Magnetic. The variation alters around the country, Wellington for example is 22 degrees East. The Magnetic Variation applied in Flightsim is not very accurate, I have noticed that it can be up to 20 degrees out in some places when setting wind direction in the sim.

Now you are probably even more confused!

Glenn.

[gojozoom]

Thanks Glenn,

I got the point. However in this case I think my FS9 has a real problem. The wind actually never blows from the direction indicated with Shift-Z. The difference is at least 90-100 degrees according to my tests. Anyway, I just have to get used to it I guess.

Thanks again!
Dan

[ZK-MAT]

I often have brain freezes with this too, particularly if retrieving a metar en route from an airport I'm heading to. Base your decision as to what runway to land on on the r/w number closest to the reported wind direction less the last digit. EG for Auckland if wind is reported at 210 use r/w 23 if wind at 035 use r/w 05 and so on. The one that gets me confused the most is NZCH 02 and 20....

[Venge]

shift z work for wind direction in FSX too? Will go have a look

Edit: Ya, it does, and a ton more info too.