CumulusX!

Well, I wanted to tryout something epic in my simulated gliding career.... Set my flight at 5:30 AM in the morning, I thought of riding the Minden ridges to a high altitude to watch the sunrise. I set winds to 36 kts and I took off, calling a tow plane to tow my DG. Released over the ridge, but after a good 30 seconds, it was weird. I was on the side the wind was blowing into the mountain ridge. And yet, I was getting negative vertical speed, and suddenly, it was whaco. Extreme lift switched with strong downdraft, off and on, off and on. Then at, times, just pure extreme downdraft! What a way to ruin your soaring day.... Is there some regards of CumulusX! hav…

Hi there Just wanted to congratulate you on the tow plane simulation! Beautiful stuff. After realising that I needed to select a tow plane inside CumulusX without FSX loaded first, fired up an FSX session, hit CTRL-SHIFT-Y. The tow plane did a left pattern turn at 500 feet and I wasn't concentrating and snapped the line! Emergency landed back at the strip only to watch the tow plane finish it's circuit then land perfectly back at the strip to wait for a re-launch. Very nice! Next attempt I paid more attention and was towed up beyond 4000 feet. Once I released the tow-line it was beautiful to watch the tow plane bank away and head back to the field. Great stuff. Of c…

Hi, I have black squared clouds. Textures seems to be there in the texture folder(s) of SimObjects\Misc\CumulusXCloud. And besides that I have some strange artifacts (white squares) which appear after connecting CumulusX and follow the user plane. Any help will be appreciated, Rob

Hi there I notice that the aero tow plane is aware of thermals. The tow plane can take off from an airport and do a pattern landing. I am not sure if he is intelligent enough to avoid mountains near the airport but I think he can. This begs the question. Why not a CumulusX option to add AI sailplanes to the current airport the user sailplane is situated at? Instead of CTRL-SHIFT-Y we have some other hotkey to add and remove AI sailplanes. The AI sailplanes are added at a configurable height directly above the airport each time the hotkey is pressed up to a configurable limit. The AI sailplane(s) are removed sequentially with another similar hotkey. All the AI sailplane…

Dear all, the new release CumulusX! 1.8 is on final approach. New in this release: Freeware and Licensed versions: - Slipstream in deep valleys or behind high terrain upwind leads to reduction of lift - Improved placement of thermals in mountains with better coincidence of slopes and thermal triggers - Lee-side thermals with reduced lift but punching through lee side sink - Thermals start on ground in steep relief - New leaning formula with a more natural leaning profile across altitude - Strength of thermal is also shown by cloud-size - Thermals start and end now first on ground with the cloud related to situation at upper end - Older CCS2004 ridge-lift b…

Hi there Thought I might just add some real life examples of mountain wave lift in case it is of interest long term for CumulusX. Check out this fascinating and awe inspiring official forecast for the potential for mountain wave conditions at the mighty ridge of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains (Spanish Peaks) in Colorado USA. Here is a quote: AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PUEBLO CO 945 PM MDT WED JUN 16 2010 AVIATION... VFR CIGS AND VIS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE THROUGH THU. MAIN AVN CONCERN WILL BE MTN WAVE ACTIVITY OVER THE ERN SLOPES OF THE SANGRES...WETS...AND RAMPARTS FROM 06Z TONIGHT THROUGH THU MORNING. WINDS WILL BECOME GUSTY FROM THE W …

Is SimProbe still needed or desired with v1.6 of Cumulus X ? I currently have some issue with very poor frame-rate w Cumulus X although it is not a problem every time and am hesitant to add another program in the mix.

Hi Peter, will you answer a question for me. In the CX Users Manual you state that a value of zero produces a purely vertical thermal while a value of 1 produces a leaning effect etc. Does this mean that a value in between these 2 values will give a corresponding effect i.e if I entered a value of 0.5 would this have the effect of producing half the leaning effect of the value of 1. Hope you understand what I mean. Regards Richard

Hi, I am new to gliding and the Discus is great however i am using FSUIPC to operate the elevator trim. I get the full range but always seem to be at 18-20 down trim. I have tried re centering the FSUIPC settings and have dumped all the water. The water ballast has a slight nose down effect when dumping but it still all settles with down trim being required. How do i set up these aircraft to be neutral trim. Is there an aircraft set menu which I have not discovered yet. My friend who is a gliding instructor is going to come and advise me on the ways of the C4 unit and I suppose will offer trim advice a…

Hi, I am new to gliding and the Discus is great however i am using FSUIPC to operate the elevator trim. I get the full range but always seem to be at 18-20 down trim. I have tried re centering the FSUIPC settings and have dumped all the water. The water ballast has a slight nose down effect when dumping but it still all settles with down trim being required. How do i set up these aircraft to be neutral trim. Is there an aircraft set menu which I have not discovered yet. My friend who is a gliding instructor is going to come and advise me on the ways of the C4 unit and I suppose will offer trim advice a…

Hi, I am new to gliding and the Discus is great however i am using FSUIPC to operate the elevator trim. I get the full range but always seem to be at 18-20 down trim. I have tried re centering the FSUIPC settings and have dumped all the water. The water ballast has a slight nose down effect when dumping but it still all settles with down trim being required. How do i set up these aircraft to be neutral trim. Is there an aircraft set menu which I have not discovered yet. My friend who is a gliding instructor is going to come and advise me on the ways of the C4 unit and I suppose will offer trim advice a…

Hi, I am new to gliding and the Discus is great however i am using FSUIPC to operate the elevator trim. I get the full range but always seem to be at 18-20 down trim. I have tried re centering the FSUIPC settings and have dumped all the water. The water ballast has a slight nose down effect when dumping but it still all settles with down trim being required. How do i set up these aircraft to be neutral trim. Is there an aircraft set menu which I have not discovered yet. My friend who is a gliding instructor is going to come and advise me on the ways of the C4 unit and I suppose will offer trim advice a…

Hi, I am new to gliding and the Discus is great however i am using FSUIPC to operate the elevator trim. I get the full range but always seem to be at 18-20 down trim. I have tried re centering the FSUIPC settings and have dumped all the water. The water ballast has a slight nose down effect when dumping but it still all settles with down trim being required. How do i set up these aircraft to be neutral trim. Is there an aircraft set menu which I have not discovered yet. My friend who is a gliding instructor is going to come and advise me on the ways of the C4 unit and I suppose will offer trim advice a…

Hi, I am new to gliding and the Discus is great however i am using FSUIPC to operate the elevator trim. I get the full range but always seem to be at 18-20 down trim. I have tried re centering the FSUIPC settings and have dumped all the water. The water ballast has a slight nose down effect when dumping but it still all settles with down trim being required. How do i set up these aircraft to be neutral trim. Is there an aircraft set menu which I have not discovered yet. My friend who is a gliding instructor is going to come and advise me on the ways of the C4 unit and I suppose will offer trim advice a…

Hi, I am new to gliding and the Discus is great however i am using FSUIPC to operate the elevator trim. I get the full range but always seem to be at 18-20 down trim. I have tried re centering the FSUIPC settings and have dumped all the water. The water ballast has a slight nose down effect when dumping but it still all settles with down trim being required. How do i set up these aircraft to be neutral trim. Is there an aircraft set menu which I have not discovered yet. My friend who is a gliding instructor is going to come and advise me on the ways of the C4 unit and I suppose will offer trim advice a…

This hint cures the problem, that the user aircraft performs giant leaps to erratic locations after installation of CumulusX!. To avoid this problem do one of the following: 1) Run "install.cmd" with Admin privileges, recommended During install right-click the command "install.cmd" in the distribution and choose "Run as Administrator" (or equivalent) or: 2) Manual install Login as administrator and copy the entire distribution archive into the installation directory of FSX. You will be prompted that this requires extra administrator privileges, please acknowledge. Background: Windows 7 protects its program directories from write access through user software…

I have installed CumulusX! as recommended, installing SP1 and SP2 and also the Acceleration pack. I followed the instructions carefully and didn't seem to have any problems during the install. However, once I run FSX and connect CumulusX1 and click the "Enable Lift" button, the aircraft I'm flying crashes into the ground at a different point from where it initially was located. Could someone please help me understand what might be the problem and suggest a fix I might try? Thanks, Ken

Hi all and hope someone can help with this. I wont go into all the details but suffice to say that with a colleague I am creating some tasks for both FS9 and FSX based on RW tasks. Now to try and be fair to all we decided to create the weather in CCS2004 and use the compatibility capability in CX so that users would have the same conditions. However I notice that when in script mode CX does not go into competition mode only when I create a CX .cmx file. Now is this normal? and How does using script mode affect CX users if CX does not go into competition mode. And any general advice regarding this is welcome. Regards Richard.

Merry Christmas everybody! New in this version: Synchronisation tool for MP events on non-Flight Simulator X-servers Reduced occurrence of blue thermal areas Improved ground handling by automatic deactivation of CumulusX! in ground proximity Support for competition soaring with Ian Lewis' Sim_Logger The program is available for download here: http://www.luerkens.homepage.t-online.de/peter/ Please be patient, only 4 connections at a time are supported, and upstream is 384 kb/sec only. best regards, Peter

I have flown quite a few missions using the latest cumulusx which is really great, however I have some questions regarding the ridge lift component. Although the lift high on a mountain slope appears to be a good simulation of reality, I am questioning the reality of ridge lift which remains consistently strong right down deep in a valley with a major mountain immediately upwind. Because the width of the slopes at the bases of mountains are naturally wider that at the top, we have a situation at present where the fastest times are being achieved by speeding from the start line down to near the valley floor at 130kts and then flying along slopes near the valley floor. Ma…

I've installed CumulusX as per the instructions, and it loads up automatically when FSX starts. When at altitude (2000ft+) my problem is not noticeable. However, below that height and particularly when on the ground, the aircraft bounce. This happens to all aircraft I have installed (not just the Discus), and I have narrowed it down to CumulusX as the problem is solved instantly by closing the program. I have also tried the usual fixes for bouncing aircraft (lowering terrain mesh resolution, lowering everything terrain related) and still the problem occurs. Just wondering if anybody else is experiencing this, or if anybody has successfully fixed it? Running FSX Acceler…

Hi First of all I have to say thank you to Peter. Without CumulusX I would stop simming years ago! Thanks for a great software. So, anyway, I think I succeded to make real cumulus clouds for thermals. When I saw Wingman's post in this topic http://www.forum.aer...showtopic=26567 I decided to give it a try and installed sdk and gmax. So basically I made a dummy 3D object and attached an effect to it. The effect is very easy to edit so you sure can make them look even better. The effect uses your actual cumulus graphics, so in theory it's compatible with every addon. You just have to copy cumulus01.bmp from Textures to Effects\Textures and the effect can use it. …

You'll have to forgive my ignorance of how some things work, I'm not very technically minded. The thermal energy that I see in the debug window varies according to the month I set in FSX, in June it is about 4.0 and today of course theres nothing. However I still don't seem to be able to get much lift despite flying to as many thermlas as I can. What can I do to influence the thermal energy i.e increase it and hence create more lift. I have been to Australia and the lift there is fantastic. I know that Australia is a hotter country and the UK is not so hot, weather wise but is there any way I can create more lift. I have played with the settings in the c…

Hi friends, corresponding to the new Aerosoft Discus, the new CumulusX! 1.5 is released today. What's new: * Slope data base no more required * Highly detailed ("3D") ridge lift algorithm (look into the manual) * Improved thermal placement in mountains * Better cloud models (try to thermal into the cloud!) * Als always: Bug removal, e.g. in old release thermal leaning went a bit haywire whith wind layers CumulusX! also has some competition functions for other software designers to ease detecting tampering with settings. It supports also licensing (for possible future use), but for now its exactly the same if your copy is registered or not. I consider it…

Hello, i have a problem with Cumulus X 1.5. Ridge Lift is always Red, i dont know what i am doing wrong. I have Windows 7 64 and FSX SP2