Condor flight simulator: Weather, real atmosphere, and convective constraint
Condor flight simulator: Weather, real atmosphere, and convective constraint This study note grew out of frustration with unrealistic weather behavior in flight simulators, particularly the frequent appearance of thunderstorms and lightning in Condor Soaring Simulator 3 under conditions that would not produce them in real Northeast USA or Allegheny Ridges atmospheres. What I did not anticipate was how valuable this mismatch would become as a teaching tool for me. Understanding why the version 3 simulator is wrong sharpened my understanding of why the real atmosphere’s is typically conducive to flying sailplanes. ⸻ The Core Insight Most good soaring days in the Northeast are not limited by lack of energy. They are limited by inherent atmospheric restraint. The real atmosphere frequently allows thermals to form, strengthen, and organize and then caps them. That restraint is meteorologically termed convective inhibition (CIN). Condor 2 models this implicitly but Condor 3 often ignores it....