windy-plugin-fp

rittels

try now

< PrimaryRoute CourseType="GreatCircle" Start="N501953.00 E0155714.00" Level="3000" CruiseProfile="ISA 1000ft - 2270rpm" Rules="Vfr" PlannedFuel="113.560000">
    < RhumbLineRoute To="N500925.45 E0152302.00" Level="MSL" LevelChange="B" />
    < RhumbLineRoute To="N500907.45 E0145006.55" Level="5000" LevelChange="B" />
    < RhumbLineRoute To="N502259.35 E0152304.85" Level="4000" LevelChange="B" />
    < RhumbLineRoute To="N502548.00 E0151959.00" Level="MSL" LevelChange="F" />
    < WeightBalance>
      ...
    < /WeightBalance>
    < ReferencedAirfields />
  < /PrimaryRoute>

Your example shows: 3000-> MSL -> 5000 -> 4000 -> MSL, but I think I get it now: The PrimaryRoute contains the default level, and if the later routes says only MSL, it implies the default Level.

What does LevelChange mean?

igor 320

@rittels
It took me a while to figure out myself how things works (I'm not very tech-savvy person) 😅

MSL is a default value for route altitude that's set in aircraft options (aircraft - edit - climb & descent). In the above's example it's repeated for the first and the last leg of a flight. I checked out my aircraft settings, and it's set for 3000 above mean sea level.

LevelChange="B" (Change level before this leg starts)
LevelChange="F" (Start changing level when this leg starts)

See screenshot below.
https://postimg.cc/Z934nVcF

Thanks for taking a time to implement it! 👍

PS: you can you download Skydemon and try to make your own tests? It's free in trial mode for 1 month.

rittels

@igor-320

Try now.

Thanks for the explanation. I have been planning on doing this for a while. Thx for the inspiration.

igor 320

del......

niio

Is this thread still active? The flight planner is great. I have been using it to plan a route to take advantage of winds aloft. Pulling the aircraft location along the IFR window I see ground speed in addition to airspeed on the popup window that moves along the route and the forecast updates as it moves along. This is really nice functionality.

The problem I have is that the forecast updates on elapsed time according to airspeed alone, so after a day of flying the forecast updates to the wrong time. With a hundred knot tailwind after a day I am thousands of miles beyond where it thinks I am. The same thing shows up in the flight planner panel, where the elapsed time does not include the impact of tailwinds. Am I missing something?

Here is the route if you are interested.
flight plan sm.jpg

niio

@niio As an update when I reloaded the plugin and the flight plan, then ran 'play' for the forecast all the ground speed data also loaded. It looks like the air speeds were taken from zero elevation even though the flight plan and wind displayed was from 39kft.

Korina

@niio @rittels Might have more insight.

rittels

@niio

Hi

Thanks for using the plugin.

Do you click the Read Wx button?

rittels

@niio

Draw the flightplan and set the departure time.

Then: click Read Wx. This loads the forecast data for the route from the windy backend, and interpolates it for the time when you reach that point. I then calculate the ground speed, and with the GS, calculate the time you when you will read the next point.

Then: Open the routeplanner.

If you Read Wx when the routeplanner is open, it should update.

The purpose of the Read Wx button is to prevent continuous calls to the server, so it is only done once you have drawn the flightplan.

Hope it helps.

niio

@rittels I have the flight plan saved in a .gpx file. I opened windy, then opened the flight plan plugin, then loaded my saved flight plan. All the ground speeds in the waypoint list updated immediately with the surface altitude winds, even though the waypoints are all at 39kft. Pressing the 'Read Wx' button does nothing.

niio

@niio In addition, the altitude line in the route planner goes to 45k or 50ft on certain legs even though the waypoint altitudes are never that high. The wind speed and direction in the window that follows the airplane icon stays at surface, even though the map is showing wind and direction at 39kft.

niio

@niio I tried making a new flight plan and the 'read wx' button worked, at least in part. Three quarters of the waypoints updated with wind speed at altitude but some did not. I could not see an obvious connection between the ones that wouldn't update and a second click of the wx button did nothing more. So the original problem is with saved routes.

rittels

@niio

Thanks. There is indeed a bug in uploading the gpx file. I will try to fix it this weekend.

In the meantime, once you have uploaded, just set 'n new start time. This will reset the read weather data, then click read Wx again, and it should read correctly.

niio

@rittels I think the waypoints that did not update were over mountain ranges, so the improperly selected zero msl elevation wind chart would not have had any data.

igor 320

@rittels , good day sir! Is it possible to add a couple things to the plugin?

I would like to see more fine-grained interpolation of altitude for climbs/descents. For example, an altitude gain of 8625 ft (from 1375 to 10000 ft ) resulted in 5 readings:

1st leg for 1375 ft;
2nd - 3100 ft;
3rd - 4825 ft;
4th - 6550 ft;
5th - 8725 ft (the end of the 5th leg is where 10000 ft reading starts).

See screenshot: https://ibb.co/0GZZXLJ

I also would really appreciate if you can implement a vertical speed (in ft/min) to get more accurate calculations. On the screenshot above there's a final red dot which represents my own calculations for Top-Of-Climb point at 500 ft/min.

rittels

@igor-320

Good suggestion.

I should perhaps add a slider for vertical speed, in climb and descent. Also climb and descent airspeed, as percentage of cruise? The UI becomes rather crowded. Let me know what you think.

igor 320

@rittels I don't have any preference for this and a simple manual entry box would suffice everyone, imo. A screenshot below is taken from SkyDemon EFB for pilots. Indicated airspeed + vertical speed for climb/descent and that's about it, since we're only interested in actual travel time and weather forecast along a route.

https://i.ibb.co/0s77SGN/Capture.png

Thanks!

PS: is it possible to use ICON-D2 forecast model somehow? It has crispy 2.2 km resolution compared to hazy 9km from ECMWF.

rittels

@igor-320

thx.

I use the routeplanner requests, which only provide ECMWF data, for other models one has to fetch the data for each point, which will take a lot longer, but it is feasible, if you want to wait a minute or 5.

igor 320

@rittels I forgot to mention that service ceiling climb rate (where normally aspirated engines loses their vertical performance down to around 100 ft/min) is also needed, so it will be 3 entries total for a climb phase:

vertical speed at sea level;
vertical speed at service ceiling;
and air speed.

In this case the final vertical speed (and thus, enroute time) will be dependent (calculated) on Min and Max values.

For example, if it set Max value to 500 ft/min (mean sea level) and Min value to 100 ft/min (e.g., at 16000 ft MSL) my vertical speed will be 400 ft/min at 4000 ft, 300 ft/min at 8000 ft etc.