Flightplan Visualizer 1.9.0 available for download

[pellelil 59]

Version 1.9 of Flightplan Visualizer have been released, and it can be downloaded from AVSIM using this link:

 

https://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=p3dutil&DLID=208889

 

For those of you who have been following the "What is - most likely - included in FV 1.9" thread at this forum, it will come as no surprise that version 1.9 is all about METAR and TAF. I guess many people (at least myself) will use FV to find inspration of which flights to fly. We will want to chose these flights based on our preferences. E.g. we want to fly between our favorite airports, served by our favorite aircraft, and perhaps we want to limit the fligt-time to last less than 3 hours (or whatever). So we use the "Search Legs" feature to find the legs (flights) that are on par with our preferences. Its always important to check the weather prior to a flight, however especially at this time of the year its extra important, as runways or perhaps entire airports will be closed due to snow (e.g. "R/SNOCLO" meaning all runways - hence the entire airport - is closed due to snow). For this reason I wanted to be able to check the weather directly in FV (when deciding on which leg to fly), before planning the flight in SimBrief, PFPX or whatever you use. These messages are automatically obtained and displayed when you open the Airport Info form (e.g. by double-clicking an airport marker on the map-view):

 

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When I initially thought about adding support for METAR and TAF I wanted to offer some kind of decoding, so users who are not used to read these messages, would have a change "understaning them". To be honest I have never looked as much at METAR/TAF as I have done during the last month or so, and I have learned to "read" a lot of codes, that I was not able to read before. In retrospect this was the perfect time of the year, for me to implement METAR/TAF-messages, as it is now common to see codes that specify: runway visibility (e.g. "R10L/2400VP6000FT") runway conditions (e.g."R08/810295"), runway windshear (e.g. "WS R26"), and so on. 

 

Anyhow I was able to add decoding of the most METAR/TAF "codes", including "codes" you only see in the "RMK" (Remark) -section of METAR/TAF-messages. I am pretty happy with the result of this decoding, and it has no known bugs. In the remark section you can basically expect to find anything (e.g. the initials of the person generating the METAR/TAF message), so you should not expect that everything will be decoded. All known "codes" (and MANY common short-cuts) will be decoded and displayed with an asterisk on their own "line" below the remark-line. All "unknown" codes/words will only be displayed in RMK-line. Clicking the "Decode" button will open the decode window. This window contains 2 columns where the left-most show the raw-codes from the METAR/TAF-message, and the right-most shows the decoded text:

 

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The METAR/TAF-messages (weather reports) can either be downloaded from the internet (NOAA) or obtained from ActiveSky. You don't have to do anything to use NOAA (real-time METAR/TAF downloaded for the internet) as NOAA is selected by default, and it does not require any configuration. However if you use ActiveSky as your weather-provider in P3D/FSX I suggest that you use the ActiveSky provider in stead, as it ensures the METAR/TAF-messages you see in FV will match the weather that AS is injecting into your sim, even when you fly with "Historic" or "Custom" weather. On the flip-side this will naturally require that you have ActiveSky in the first place, and that ActiveSky is running.  

 

The updated manual (enclosed with this version) will both tell you how to configure the ActiveSky-provider in FV (page 15-16) and how to select this as the active provider (page 33-34). Remember the manual can be accessed from within FV using the "Help", menu. But also remember that you should NEVER change the settings-file while FV is running. Reading page 29-34 of the manual will give you more info on using the METAR/TAF functionallity, and inform you about the Pros/Cons of the 3 different providers.

 

Here below is the full changelog (what is new in version 1.9):

• Added METAR- and TAF-messages to the Airport Info form. METAR and TAF-reports can be obtained using 3 different weather-providers: NoaaWeb (NOAA via the web), ActiveSkyFile (obtained from the file that ActiveSky generates) or ActiveSkyNet (obtained via ActiveSky's network-protocol). NOAA offers real-time reports, wheras ActiveSky both offers real-time-, historic- and custom-weather (based on the selected mode in ActiveSky).
• Added decoding of METAR- and TAF-messages to assist those who are not used to decoding these themselves. The decoded messages can be copied to the clipboard, in case you need these elswhere (e.g. to be inserted in the documents you perhaps prepare before a flight).
• Added menu-items to the main-menu, to select weather-provider.
• The Airport Info form now shows both Zulu- and Local-time for the selected airport (Zulu time is the same all over the globe, but Local-time is dependant on the time-zone of the airport).
• Removed the Route-listview form the main-form (used the extra space for the Airport-listview).

 

Don't forget that METAR/TAF-messages do contain errors/typos from time-to-time, and there will be remarks that are not decode. However if you notice some METAR/TAF-codes that you think the decoder is not decoding correct, please post the entire METAR/TAF message and write which part of the code you think is not decoded correctly (I will need both the "raw" code" and its decoded counterpart). You can use the "Copy to clipboard" button in the lower/left-corner of the Decode-form to both grab the raw message, and the decoded text, but don't forget to specify WHICH code you think is not decoded correctly.