Simulators Training and Proficiency

Skyscapes for Simmers

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

Peter James

Tuesday, July 30, 2024 at 03:39 PM ET

Verified

Edited By: tccjeremy

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

Key Takeaways:

The author, a real-world pilot, enjoys creating custom "skyscapes" (manually configured weather themes) in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020) for artistic expression and challenging flight.
MSFS2020 has significantly improved its visual world and weather modeling, with recent updates making convective clouds (cumulus, thunderstorms) dynamically realistic, featuring turbulence, wind shear, and vertical upheavals.
Creating custom weather themes is user-friendly, allowing players to easily adjust elements like clouds, wind, visibility, and precipitation to simulate diverse real-world conditions.
These customized "skyscapes" offer highly immersive and realistic flight experiences, providing challenges comparable to real-life conditions, even for heavy airliners and light aircraft.

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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).

Peter James

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.