Questions from new user on historical weather.

[Lostania]

Hello everyone.
I’m a new Active Sky user on MSFS 2024. I fly the Fenix A320 and I have several questions.


I’m trying to enable historical weather. I’m extremely surprised because once the historical weather is loaded, everything seems correct, but the winds are all the same regardless of altitude. Is this normal? Why don’t they match the winds shown in the “conditions” tab?


Also, a question related to the Fenix. Once the weather is loaded and the flight plan is generated in SimBrief for the selected date and transferred via SimBrief Downloader, the METAR shown in the Fenix is always the one from real-time weather. My METAR source is set to SIMULATOR in the settings. Is there any way to load the METAR corresponding to the selected date, and therefore also load the matching winds instead of the real-time ones? I must admit that if this isn’t possible, I don’t really see the point of using Active Sky — at least not for historical weather…


Finally, one last question: even though I disable the “automatically load SimBrief flight plan” option, it still loads every time ASFS starts. How can I fix this? Thank you all!

 

[maxam]

What to try (step-by-step) so you get SimBrief/ASFS winds consistent with your selected date, and to maximise the chance the Fenix EFB will show matching METARs:

1. Set ASFS to the historical date/time you want and let it finish the download/processing in ASFS (wait until ASFS status shows it’s Idle / finished). If ASFS is still downloading the historical archive when SimBrief queries it, the upload can fail.
2. Run the SimBrief Downloader (the small app in your Windows tray). In SimBrief Dispatch → Historical Weather choose “Upload a new weather snapshot” (or right-click the SimBrief Downloader tray icon and select Upload Active Sky Weather). This forces ASFS to hand the historical snapshot to SimBrief so the OFP/winds come from that snapshot, not live METARs. After that generate the OFP.
3. Import the SimBrief OFP into Fenix (EFB → SimBrief import). The OFP will contain the historical winds that SimBrief generated from the ASFS snapshot — those winds will be used for the flight planning/fuel numbers. (This is how to ensure SimBrief’s winds match your chosen date.)
4. Set Fenix EFB METAR Source to “SIMULATOR” (you already did this). This setting should make the EFB ask the sim for METAR data instead of pulling from external web METAR providers — but in practice users report mixed results: sometimes Fenix still shows live internet METARs because of how MSFS or the EFB fetches METARs. Fenix added a SIMULATOR source option in updates, but that doesn’t guarantee every METAR query will be answered with the ASFS historical snapshot.

For your last question, try this:

• Manual Load: Manually load your SimBrief .pln into ASFS via its Flight Plan page before starting a flight.
• Use EFB / In-Sim SimBrief: Use your aircraft’s EFB (or Navigraph’s SimBrief integration) to load the flight plan. Then manually trigger ASFS to “see” that plan.
• Keep ASFS Running: Make sure ASFS is fully up and running before MSFS starts loading your flight.

 

[Lostania]

What to try (step-by-step) so you get SimBrief/ASFS winds consistent with your selected date, and to maximise the chance the Fenix EFB will show matching METARs:

1. Set ASFS to the historical date/time you want and let it finish the download/processing in ASFS (wait until ASFS status shows it’s Idle / finished). If ASFS is still downloading the historical archive when SimBrief queries it, the upload can fail.
2. Run the SimBrief Downloader (the small app in your Windows tray). In SimBrief Dispatch → Historical Weather choose “Upload a new weather snapshot” (or right-click the SimBrief Downloader tray icon and select Upload Active Sky Weather). This forces ASFS to hand the historical snapshot to SimBrief so the OFP/winds come from that snapshot, not live METARs. After that generate the OFP.
3. Import the SimBrief OFP into Fenix (EFB → SimBrief import). The OFP will contain the historical winds that SimBrief generated from the ASFS snapshot — those winds will be used for the flight planning/fuel numbers. (This is how to ensure SimBrief’s winds match your chosen date.)
4. Set Fenix EFB METAR Source to “SIMULATOR” (you already did this). This setting should make the EFB ask the sim for METAR data instead of pulling from external web METAR providers — but in practice users report mixed results: sometimes Fenix still shows live internet METARs because of how MSFS or the EFB fetches METARs. Fenix added a SIMULATOR source option in updates, but that doesn’t guarantee every METAR query will be answered with the ASFS historical snapshot.

For your last question, try this:

• Manual Load: Manually load your SimBrief .pln into ASFS via its Flight Plan page before starting a flight.
• Use EFB / In-Sim SimBrief: Use your aircraft’s EFB (or Navigraph’s SimBrief integration) to load the flight plan. Then manually trigger ASFS to “see” that plan.
• Keep ASFS Running: Make sure ASFS is fully up and running before MSFS starts loading your flight.

Hi. I would like to thank you for your very complete answer. Thanks a lot. I’ll apply all your advises. Best regards.

 

[maxam]

Hello,

Sure thing, I hope it helps.

Rob