Wind and Weather (TD v4.10)
Support for wind was included as standard for coop missions in the TD v4.10 release, and is also supported by HSFX 5.0. SEOW v3.3 or later also supports wind effects natively. SEOW wind modelling cannot be disabled. The SEOW wind model contains several components:
An integrated weather+wind engine, where the wind is statistically correlated with weather visibility conditions New graphical indicator support in the MP to give commanders all required information on wind climate, mission by mission A set of default climatic parameters in the database that allow designers to limit wind effects on a per sector basis
SEOW Wind Model
SEOW supports variations in wind speed, direction, gust and turbulence. For each sector, the Sector_Climate table of the database lists maximum limits for speed, gust and turbulence.
Wind Speed is measured in metres per second, the allowed maximum is 10 (which is 36 kmh). Wind Gust is measured by an integer value: 0 = none, 8 = low, 10 = moderate, 12 = strong Wind Turbulence is measured by an integer value: 0 = none, 3 = low, 4 = moderate, 5 = strong, 6 = very strong Wind Direction is calculated by SEOW, and depends on the dominant runway direction in the sector. The wind will usually align approximately with the dominant runway vector.
As an example, setting Wind_Speed_Max = 5, Wind_Gust_Max = 8 and Wind_Turbulence_Max = 5 in Sector_Climate for Sinai sector will mean that the wind in the Sinai sector will never exceed 5 m/s (18 kmh), the gust strength will never exceed "low" and the turbulence will never exceed "strong".
MP Support
The MP has new support for wind conditions. First, the compass now shows the wind direction (the orange arrow points into the wind) and speed in kmh. Gust and turbulence settings are not shown. The following image shows the MP compass and its wind graphics.
Second, the MP automatically calculates the headwind and crosswind strengths for each airbase. If wind conditions at any airbase are deemed dangerous, the MP will show a "wind-affected" airbase icon, and will display wind component strengths in the tooltip. Commanders will be free to task flights from or to wind-affected airbases, but they must recognize that takeoff and landing accidents may occur in extreme conditions. The following image shows Frankfurt Field on the Ardennes map affected by strong south-easterly winds (giving unsafe tailwinds).
Finally, note that wind forecasts are not perfect, just as weather visibility forecasts are not perfect. What commanders see as forecast wind conditions in the MP will likely be in error when compared to actual wind conditions in the mission, but the errors will be relatively small. Check out the usual weather forecast icon in the MP for weather+wind information.
