In a previous article I made the comment that there are only a couple of add-ons that you cannot be without for FS. One of them is Active Sky. Almost everyone reading this article will have heard of this add-on at some point in their FS careers, but just what exactly is Active Sky? Well it is a weather simulation program for Flight Simulator 2004. ‘OK big deal' I hear you say, ‘Microsoft gives us a built-in weather creator that is lots better than previous versions of FS and I'm happy with what I've got'. In that case, please read on, as you will realize that you are far from happy with what Microsoft have provided. Fair enough, it is lots better than their previous efforts, but it is nothing compared to what the guys at HiFi have created.

The program can be download from www.hifisim.com and costs a very reasonable US$37.99 and comes as a 41MB ZIP file, so this may pose some problems for dial-up users. With the download you also get the Active Sky Graphics tool, which allows you to create your own themes, but more on that later. Once downloaded, installation is quick and easy as the process is automated, as is the norm these days.

Once installed an icon appears on your desktop for a quick launch of Active Sky. A good feature about Active Sky is the wide range of options available so that you can customize it to suit your needs, all of which will help improve your own experience once in the air. Want increased wake effects, visibility smoothing, vertical air simulation and icing? No problem, just check the box, click save and it's done. It really is that simple. You can even dictate how often Active Sky communicates with one of it's 2 servers to download the weather. Once the weather is set, load up FS and you'll be amazed at the difference. I prefer to load things up and wait a few minutes before I do anything, just to let everything settle down prior to flying. It's also a good chance to get those pre-flight checks done.

If you already know the route you are going to fly, and have complied your .pln file, you can load this into Active Sky before you load up FS, and a en-route report is generated giving you a whole heap of information to help you fine tune your flight. Winds aloft data are given, along with temperatures, en route speeds and a planned ETA. So if you really like to keep it real, the winds aloft data is great for planning the best altitude to fly at for fuel economy.

Before I even start the engines, I will open up the included weather radar by pressing ctrl+f12. You can load your flight plan into this, and then you can see if you're going to have any conflicts with rain. Unfortunately the radar will only show precipitation, so you still may encounter lots of turbulence in the clouds, but it's fun to plan ahead and make the decision to delay your flight by going around the storm, or arrive early by going through it.

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