Three weather modes. Pick per session at the sector picker: OFF, WIND ONLY (deterministic upper-air wind affects ground speed & drift), or FULL WEATHER (wind plus drifting precipitation cells, some of which are thunderstorms).
Wind: Will impact the speed and turn radius of aircraft (Ground speed)
Realistic cell behaviour. Cells build, mature and decay over their lifetime; thunderstorms render with darker green/grey and animated lightning glyphs (X). Cell drift speed is roughly half the upper-air wind.
Thunderstorm Deviations:
Pilot weather requests. When a controlled flight's route passes within 8 NM of a CB within ~5 minutes, the pilot transmits once: "Callsign, request weather deviation, cumulonimbus ahead". The strip flashes yellow for 3 s and gains an orange ⛈ WXbadge on the route line until the threat is gone.
Penalty for storm penetration. Ignore the request and the aircraft enters the 8 NM zone => penalty in score.
Background traffic auto-deviates. Flights you haven't accepted route around thunderstorms silently — no radio call, no penalty.
Full holding system. Issue ICAO right-turn racetracks at any fix via HOLD AT <fix> or the radial menu (DCT/HLD → Holding). Hold state is shown everywhere it matters — H {fix} badge on the radar label, HOLD tag on the flight strip and a dedicated panel section with fix, inbound course and elapsed time. Speeds follow ICAO caps (230/240/265 KIAS by altitude band) with a further reduction once established, so pattern radii stay realistic. Pilot voices include new hold-clearance.
Smart hold handling. Aircraft in an active hold cannot be handed off — clear the hold or use RESUME first. Issuing a DIRECT or HEADING auto-cancels the hold. Holding traffic is excluded from the MTCD predictor (racetracks aren't modellable), so you stay responsible for vertical protection of the stack!
Pilots request new flight levels mid-cruise. Realistic operational reasons (turbulence, weight burn-off, smoother ride). The requested FL is shown next to the cleared FL on both the radar label and the FlightInfoPanel.
Manual RFL override. Controllers can push a new requested flight level down from the FL radial menu, independent of the cleared level.
Experimental Highscores Added - saved per sector locally
- Minor Bugfixes
- 20% Additional Traffic for all sectors