Jump to content

No lift


wingman5

Recommended Posts

Hi all

I have chiefly used CumulusX as the vehicle for ridge soaring with simprobe ,but I had noticed that if I had thermals on schematic I could fly through a cuX thermal and not get any lift , but I put this down to the fact that they needed to be set up .But now having been contacted by someone who also count find any lift , I went back to mine to see if I could help .After extensive testing at various sites, times of day and year , heights , winds , all the supplied .cmx files and just playing with the settings , although the autothermal box is green I have flown through any amount of spirals but never once have I hit one iota of lift (or sink) .

Here's the de-bug for a flight , I have noticed that the thermal lift, energy and sink figures do change but no effect is felt in the sim .

Slope angle = 0

Slope_dir = 000

AmpWindDir = 274

AmbWindSpeed = 9.81

Lift Limit MSL = 0

AcftAltitude = 1938

Slope-Lift = 0.00

WideSpreadSink = -0.08

Eff. Thermal Lift = -0.08

SimProbeExist = True

SimProbeLift = 0.00

Thermal Energy = 4.32

Sun Azimuth = 228'

Sun Altitude = 51'

Max. Sun Altit. = 58'

Solar time = 14:01

Sun rise = 00:00

If perchance I blunder into one of the FSX thermals I get the normal lift and sink aplenty .

Anyone able to help .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...

WideSpreadSink = -0.08

AmbWindSpeed = 9.81

...

Eff. Thermal Lift = -0.08

Hey wingman,

you have pretty much wind speed, which let the CumulusX! thermal columns lean downwind considerably. MS' thermals do not consider that and suppose always a vertical thermal column, and so show the MS spirals. Thus, together with Cx! the spirals suggest lift where there is none. As you can see, "Eff. Thermal Lift" just shows you the widespread sink at your position.

Forget the spirals and use the Cx! clouds, then move from beneath a cloud upwind until you hit the lift. It's a bit tricky for beginners, but that's what real glider pilots do as well.

And, as mostly, there are some tricks to make life easier:

1) Set wind to zero, then thermal columns are vertical and the spirals show you

or

2) Set Thermal Lean Factor in the configuration pane to zero, which makes the thermal columns vertical regardless of the wind.

Cheers,

Peter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Peter ,

That debug was just one of many flights , I have tried with zero wind , and lean factor set to Zero . I can trim the glider for min sink at say 5,000 ft and fly hands off and the vario will not move untill I eventually hit the ground , and thats with the Beginners cmx file where the thermals are so numerous they are all overlapping .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Try the following:

Go to FSX root directory

Rename thermaldescription.xml to thermaldescriptions.xml.deactivated. This deactivates FSX-thermals, in order not to confuse you with a mixture of FSX thermals and CumulusX! thermals.

Start a free flight in summer at 3pm local time, say in 40-50°latitude, over land (not over water bodies), first with "Fair weather", then go to Weather/User defined and turn off all winds.

In FSX select tools/options/display/weather: Schematic.

Start CumulusX!, connect and activate lift (unless it's not yet done automatically) load the default profile, select Help/Unblue.

Now the spirals should show, which are definitely CumulusX! thermals, only.

Slew the aircraft in the center of one spiral, some hundred ft AGL.

Switch on debug.

Turn-off slewing and try to circle in the center of the spiral.

The debug window should now show reasonable lift in "Eff. Thermal Lift" and the plane should gain altitude.

There is a flag in FSX options/display/weather: Turn-off turbulence effects, which deactivates also FSX built-in thermals, but not CumulusX! thermals. It is difficult to track down errors if you have a mixture of FSX thermals and CumulusX! thermals, therefor the deactivation of thermaldescriptions.xml

regards,

Peter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Peter

Well I don't understand it ! I did as you said (and it is nothing different to what I have done many times over the last few days ) but this time I had no trouble finding lift ! And just to make sure I tried different locations and .cmx files which were again OK . So I guess it's problem solved !

The only thing I could not find was the "unblue", help just took me to the manual ?

I've been putting in a recommendation for people to visit virtual soaring to download CumulusX! and SimProbe with the models I release , so I will now be happy to continue doing so .

I'm so sorry to have doubted your excellent programme .

Kind regards and thanks

Dave R

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm so sorry to have doubted your excellent programme .

How DARE you! LOL... :winks:

Thanks for the feedback - given FSX's total lack of support for controlling lift via any program interface the CumulusX/sim_probe combination is fairly complex, so there's always the chance bugs can creep in, or indeed user config errors. Here's hoping for a better API in the next version of FS.

So you know, CumulusX is doing micro-movements of the aircraft on a per-frame basis to inject vertical adjustments due to the calculated lift, and sim_probe is 'flying' four AI objects in formation at about 32,000 feet to provide vertical sample points for the terrain around the user aircraft (hence the name sim_*probe*). So the programs are working with FSX at a very basic level and a couple of new API calls in the next version of FS would greatly simplify the implementation. Kudos to Peter for making the program perform in a trouble-free way so the user doesn't have to know or care about the challenge of the implementation.

Ian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Dave,

glad to her it working now, still curious, what might have been the reason.

"Unblue" is an option in Cx! main menu "Help" and in FSX' Addon/CumulusX! menu, which makes thermals visible, even if FSX' weather suggests blue sky conditions. Thermals are shown in the way that was selected in FSX' display/weather options.

Cheers,

Peter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

Didn't want to start a new topic, but wanted to say thank you for THIS topic and in particular your post Peter, on how to get this CumulusX working. I've been trying for 2 days to find some lift with this module, without success. I've uninstalled it twice, and thought about giving up. But thanks to that post above, I reinstalled it just now, set it up exactly the way you said, and even watched new thermals come in. Now I know it works, and I am relieved. I only have the freeware version, and I'm not sure if ridge lift comes with that. I'm too tired now, but I'll try it tomorrow.

Thanks again for this topic, saved me starting a new one saying I couldn't get it to work. Well done Peter, seems like a great bit of work, thank you.

Tony

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Tony,

thanks for your interest in CumulusX!. This is really an old thread and some things are no longer up to date. In particular, CumulusX! has meanwhile it's own thermal cloud engine so the hint with spirals is no longer valid. If you have any problems, don't hesitate to post your questions in a new thread.

Cheers,

Peter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Privacy Policy & Terms of Use