Sim Soaring Club presents: 

Soaring Weather for MSFS

The goal of these presets is to provide flyable conditions, in a wide variety of geographical locations, be it over flat terrain or in the mountains and at the same time maintain a realistic look of the weather. To achieve this goal we optimised relevant variables and created workarounds for various MSFS quirks. After hundreds of hours of research and feedback from real pilots we believe to have found a compromise that best mitigates the current issues with lift in MSFS.

This download contains over 200 Weather Presets, allowing you to glide anywhere in the world.

How to install (MSFS 2024):
Download the Main File and copy the "SSC-Weather-MSFS_2024" folder into your MSFS 2024 Community Folder! NEW

How to install (MSFS 2020):
Download the MSFS 2020 file copy the "SSC-Weather-MSFS_2020" folder into your MSFS 2020 Community Folder! NEW

To keep your in-game presets selection organized, it's recommended to delete any older versions you might have installed from the Weather Presets folder in your appdata location.

There's subtile differences in the weather simulation between the two titles, with MSFS 2024 generally offering slightly weaker lift on the ridges but increased cloud coverage at the same values as in MSFS 2020. These presets attempt to compensate for this, by adjusting wind speeds and cloud coverage in a way where the same preset number (ie 017 Few Cu) should feel as close as possible in both sims, allowing cross-title multiplayer soaring.

Watch the Video Tutorial

The SSC Soaring Weather features 2 sources of lift for glider pilots:

1. Thermals (rising air associated with clouds)
2. Ridge lift (created by wind flowing over mountains)

Prerequisites:
In order to find decent thermals, flights should be done in summer around noon hours.
Time of Day and Season play a big role in determining the thermal strength.
These factors are not part of the presets and have to be set by the pilot himself.

Thermals:

Presets feature a range of thermal strengths, indicated  by the "T2 - T12" prefix included in their name.
Due to how msfs works, these thermals can be found a little offset to the windward side of the cloud (not directly below the cloud). The larger, higher and denser the cloud is looking, the bigger is the chance to find good lift.
MSFS also simulates hot air rising from the sun heating terrain, but this is completely independent from cloud formation, and cannot be controlled by a weather preset, as it solely depends on the time of day, season and wind speed among other things.

Ridge lift:

MSFS is doing an ok job at simulating air flowing over mountains, with the exception of the fact that under many circumstances lift can be found at altitudes high above the ridges, which is quite unrealistic.
To work around this fact, the presets are set up in AGL mode, featuring several wind layers at different altitudes above ground level (as opposed to altitude above sea level).
You will find wind speeds of 10 - 15 kts close to the surface (be it in a valley or on a mountain peak). As in real life this lift only reaches a couple of 1000 ft above the terrain, due to the addition of multiple wind layers of decreasing wind speeds in the preset, meaning you have to fly pretty close to the mountains in order to benefit from the ridge lift.

Tips:

• For best conditions fly during summer at noon.
• Pick a preset with a favourable wind direction depending on your flight plan.
• Find thermals on the windward side of clouds (not directly under clouds).
• For best lift in the mountains fly between 500 - 1500 feet above the ground.
• Fly over terrain easily heated by the sun (cities, rocks, beaches)
• Set the Turbulence option in Assistance Settings to low to avoid unrealistic turbulence.

Note:

These weather presets control the lift by manipulating the wind so you will see wind speeds reducing significantly as you rise above slopes but this seems the optimal compromise to get realistic ridge-lift conditions. They were designed to work universally for thermal- and ridge soaring. 

The Sim Soaring Club is a friendly community of over 2000 pilots, flying gliders in MSFS and hosting multiple group flights every week.

Join us on discord.simsoaring.club

Contributing pilots:
Alexandre, B21, Biggles, CallMeJo, Georg, MountainManVR & all active members of the Sim Soaring Club.

Happy Soaring!

Log in to join the discussion

Soaring Weather

Enhance your gliding experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator with Soaring Weather by Sim Soaring Club. This add-on includes 122 presets optimized to provide realistic lift conditions for thermal and ridge soaring around the world. Discover the art of finding thermals and ridge lift to soar like a real pilot, and join a community of over 1800 glider enthusiasts for weekly group flights.

Version History