Skyscapes for Simmers

Take the ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020′ live weather feature to the next level with manual setup.

A CB expanding and exploding is such a beautiful thing in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. [Courtesy: Peter James]

During my first few flying lessons as a teenager, I discovered the joy of going near or into cumulus clouds. Dodging canyons, diving, turning and twisting around “puffies” was good enough to be a sport to me. 

Thirty years later, as I have racked up thousands of hours flying business jets, fulfilling my cloud-popping dreams, I get to do the same on my home flight sim thanks to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020).

In the four years since MSFS2020's release, so many improvements and features have been added to make its visual world more realistic. The weather modeling seems to improve almost daily. 

MSFS2020's live weather feature has always been fabulous and seemingly accurate. Yet with all its improvements, I still have an affinity for manually setting up the sky. I call this "skyscapes."

Creating Skyscapes

I make my own skyscapes all the time now—and you can too. Or you can download them from others. It’s easy to do, tons of fun, and has become an artistic way of enjoying the sim.

It’s perfect for making coffee-table-perfect screenshots and also allowing overriding the live weather in case it’s interfering with your plans on that day. 

Manually setting CU with rain shafts will result in rainbows under the right conditions. This photo was SLC high base CU in gusty conditions with clear downburst modeling. This is using the recently released PMDG 777-300ER. [Courtesy: Peter James]

I enjoy modeling convection. The visuals of the cumulus clouds against a deep blue sky is intoxicating to me. Up until recently the cumulous model or thunderstorm was dead, with little or no turbulence. I would have to turn to X-Plane 12 storm modeling to be challenged. 

X-Plane has always done a superior job in convective modeling. But in the last two months until now I have noticed something in MSFS2020 has changed. 

Recently, I took a sim flight around Thailand testing out the new incredible PMDG 777-300 (pmdg.com), using my self made tropical skyscape. I programmed cumulus clouds with tops exceeding 30,000 feet, which suddenly started to upset the mega airliner as I flew traffic patterns. 

Near the cumulous, there were sudden upheavals, airspeed changes, and shear. It was rough. Some clouds did nothing, while others had winds gusting to over 50 knots in spots, varying on the direction, creating shear and moderate turbulence.

I tried numerous circuits around the area, with some 30 miles around the airport intentionally penetrating and circumnavigating the cumulous, some of which had grown to thunderstorms with lightning bolts. Adjusting the manual slider for customization I increased the lightning percentage and rainfall rates. The visual effect was spectacular, with visible rain shafts, downbursts, and rainbows.

I used one of my own homemade ‘skyscapes,’ which is found by untoggling the live weather option. You can choose many presets by MSFS2020, anyone else’s, or your own after you save them. [Courtesy: Peter James]

Creating Sim Weather Themes

Creating your own weather themes is a breeze.

To get started, just untoggle the live weather button then manually tweak clouds, wind, visability, and temperature. Use the little icon to the upper-right corner to give it a unique name. That’s it, and it is saved forever for recall or to share online with others. I have started making many, based on real-world location and with the typical weather. 

Using manual weather offers the ability to deepen the blue sky to accurately represent areas that don’t have pollution, like the Pacific Islands or the Rocky Mountains in the U.S.

To do this, drag the humidity slider fully to the left. Moving it to the right creates more humidity, leading to a reduction in visibility or even fog if you keep going full right into a zero/zero type of world.

Temperature is self explanatory. Lightning is fun to tinker with, as is precipitation. By having high bases and no precipitation, you can simulate typical high altitude Rocky Mountain-style convection.

Throw in gusty winds in varying degrees with altitude or shear to simulate a day filled with thermals and convective winds. Dry base storms in the Rockies can be deadly, even without any precipitation falling. By adding a lot of precipitation you’ll get intense rain shafts and flooding.

By lowering clouds to under 3,000 feet msl, reducing visibility, and having intense rains, you’ll be creating a typical tropical-style setup. Make the winds light. The combinations are endless. 

Editing the individual clouds in this example shows CU activity with tops up over 39,000 feet with low bases due to my location in Thailand. [Courtesy: Peter James]

The results of the above sliders of 30 percent lightning, bases 2,200 msl, tops FL 390 with no humidity affecting visibility. Note the menacing narrow CBs with downbursts as you would get in the tropics. [Courtesy: Peter James]

That is not haze but accurate light rain shaft scattering light. With time this will move and drift or get worse. The lighting effects of MSFS2020 are spectacular.  [Courtesy: Peter James] 

Tropical convection with a lightning flash. Sudden wind shear and turbulence occurring. The MFD shows winds over 40 knots in the area of the cloud, despite me programming calm winds manually for the entire area. [Courtesy: Peter James]

The Phuket region of Thailand is beautiful. Note the water being a mirror under calm surface wind, but near the cumulus things go wild. [Courtesy: Peter James]

Still adjusting to the 777-300ER at a whopping REF of 153 knots, all while battling the burst of shear and vertical excursions near the convection. [Courtesy: Peter James]

The PMDG 777 is the epitome of a realistic, study-level aircraft. I am currently using an Asus ROG 18 (i9, GeForce 4090) laptop for all my flight simming sessions. 

Tropical vertical towers rise and fall and sometimes make crazy shapes just like I have seen in real life. [Courtesy: Peter James]

As I fly the heavy jumbo, which in itself is a task, I wondered how the effects would affect a Cessna type aircraft. I booted up a brand new late model  Carenado Cessna 182T and flew over the intermountain western U.S. for testing using a similar weather model but raising the CU bases to about 7,000 agl and tops to near FL 400. 

It’s a random occurrence, but climbing near the bases resulted in some light chop and shear, though not as much as expected. After adding in more lightning and rainfall, I experienced some massive vertical spikes with winds gusting to almost 50 knots while in cruise at some places near clouds.

A Carenado Skylane with some hearty convective action nearby over the plains of the Western U.S. [Courtesy: Peter James]

Rain curtain and rainbow simulation is fully active depending on lightning angle and precipitation rates, just like in reality. [Courtesy: Peter James]

The beauty of high base cumulonimbus simulation with a rain curtain looks like a storm-chaser action scene. [Courtesy: Peter James]

In preparing this article, I used a recently released add-on called SimFx by Parallel 42. It is available here, and includes other visual aircraft effects like wing fogging, tire spray, rubber trails, dirt, and much more. Some pretty cool premade “skyscapes” are included as well. 

On final where the go-around would be a real nail-biter with a race against time just to make a normal landing. Flight simulation is not always about using good judgment. Indeed, often a scenario-challenging question is perhaps more in the lines of what not to do in real life. [Courtesy: Peter James]

Your home sim may not be able to replicate everything, but the amount it can do is staggering. The lack of motion is really about the only thing that stands out. Visuals are better than FAA-level D sims—and sound better too.

Hopefully you too will try making some of your own “skyscapes” in MSFS2020 and discover the fun of doing so as I have.

Peter James
Peter JamesContributor
Peter is an experienced Part 135 business jet pilot with a passion for simulators and how they blend with the real world. Learning to fly at age 12, he supplemented his passion and career goals with the early versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator. With the growing realism of all PC simulators today, he frequently uses them for extra proficiency, and loves to show other pilots how great they are.

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