Active Sky XP 12

The next installment in the Active Sky series, Active Sky XP 12 brings extensive integration with the new X-Plane 12 platform and its re-designed weather system.

Not a “replacement” to the internal weather system of XP12, ASXP12 is a Comprehensive Enhancement, enabled by tight integration, that adds an improved weather experience, from planning, weather data access and interaction, weather control, automatic weather mode control, air effects, to advanced depiction, and much, much more.

Where to Buy

Authorized resellers include SimMarket, Aerosoft, JustFlight and Flight1. Click on a preferred reseller below to purchase and download now:

                     

Over 20 years in the making, Active Sky utilizes several weather data sources including surface and model data, and synthesizes and curates it into the most accurate and realistic weather scene possible for your simulated flights.

As always, Active Sky provides Live, historical, and customized weather options, with historical playback capability, provide the weather exactly as you want it, when you want it.

Features Spotlight

  • Evolving Weather Depiction utilizing XP12’s new weather SDK/API, which is undergoing active improvement – ASXP12 brings new control capabilities and accuracy, enhanced smoothing, and couples with the new 3D procedural clouds and new lighting system of XP12 for a much improved visual experience

  • New Improvements in recent ASXP12 updates include: Ground snow control, providing more accurate ground snow coverage according to actual ground snow depth data, new Passive weather control mode, turbulence tuning and much more. See the changelog below for more information.

  • Enhanced Air Effects works with and enhances internal X-Plane 12 effects, providing new turbulence, drafts, thermals, terrain-based wind effects, variability, microbursts and more

  • Optional Live Hybrid Depiction Control allows a combination of ASXP12 fully-controlled weather depiction and effects, and X-Plane 12 live weather depiction + ASXP12 effects – XP12 live wx depiction is enabled in the enroute phases, and ASXP12 wx depiction is enabled in the departure/destination phases

  • Active Sky Weather Engine brings the core features that made Active Sky the leading weather add-on for FS9, FSX, P3D, and XP platforms, including Advanced weather synthesis and interpolation, high-resolution global model data integrated with surface observation and forecast data, realistic air and atmosphere effects, integrated visual mapping and planning, and much, much more

  • Historical Weather is included, in hourly intervals, with automatic playback to keep you in sync, changing weather dynamically as it happened in real life

  • Custom Weather allows visual application and modification of all weather parameters using the ASXP12 interface

  • Navigraph and SimBrief Integration allows optional up to date Navigation and Airport databases as well as SimBrief Flight Plan load/import

  • Voice Weather Delivery Active Sky ATIS and Flightwatch are available at any time by listening on 122.00, 122.02 or 122.03 for closest station, actual/current interpolated conditions and destination weather reports, respectively

  • Comprehensive API allows 3rd parties to integrate in many ways, getting or setting nearly every parameter of ASXP12 weather and depiction

  • Mobile Companion App Use any device/browser to connect with Active Sky over your network and view and control the weather

Features, specifications, requirements and pricing subject to change

Requirements

  • Windows 64-Bit (v7 or later) Only
    • Mac, Linux and 32-bit X-Plane/Windows versions are not supported
    • In a networked environment, the ASXP application/client may run on Windows 32-bit (7 or later), but X-Plane must be 64-bit on Windows 64-bit (7 or later)

  • X-Plane 12: v12.04 or later (64-bit for Windows) required

  • Active and stable internet connection (broadband recommended)*

  • 500mb available hard drive space

  • 1GHZ+ CPU

  • 4GB+ RAM

  • Video Card: Minimum as required for X-Plane 11 or X-Plane 12. DX12/Vulkan Compatible card with 2GB+ VRAM is recommended.

  • 1024×768 minimum available screen resolution to display all user interface features
*Active Sky XP 12 is an online product that will require the creation of a new user account. You must be logged in to use the software. One login per user account is permitted. You can install the software on multiple machines and/or move the software to other machines, but may be logged in only once at a time. Using Active Sky XP 12, creating a user account, and logging into the system require the acceptance of our Privacy Policy at https://hifisimtech.com/privacy-policy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I use ASXP12 for X-Plane 11?
A: No.  ASXP12 supports X-Plane 12 only. ASXP supports X-Plane 11.

Q: Can I have both ASXP12 and ASXP installed at the same time?
A: Yes, you can use the same license key and login/account for both products, which can both be installed. Just use the one you want for the specific simulator version in use at the time.

Q: Is there an SDK/API for other add-ons to interface with ASXP12?
A: Yes.  We provide a comprehensive API including easy-access http interface system to get and set weather and integrate in many different ways with ASXP12. API Documentation is found in the Program Files installation folder of ASXP12 (Documentation subfolder).

Q: What is Hybrid mode and what is its purpose or benefit?
A: This is an experimental mode to allow the best of both full ASXP12 control and new XP12 multi-region weather. When in XP12 live wx mode, AS doesn’t control weather parameters, it leaves everything up to XP12 and its live weather data/depiction mode. The weather data used by ASXP12 remains AS entirely and is essentially the same as XP12 data, except for surface data, where our data tends to be more up to date and offers more functionality and features/options. So this way at your departure and destination areas you get the ASXP12 full experience, and enroute, you get the XP12 live wx experience with AS effects and features available. These effects include our new specialized turbulence, drafts and all air effects in general. In XP12 live mode, these effects are additive (along with XP12’s internal live wx effects).

Revision Changelog

Update 013024

  • Applied alternate tropopause temperature handling to prevent out of range values causing crashing/issues with some aircraft including HotStart Challenger 650
  • Fixed bug in previous turbulence changes causing excessive turbulence (translational forces) in some cases

Update 012624

  • Adjusted snow coverage depiction to not display snow when surface temps are greater than 5C, to reduce snow depiction when lower snow depth data resolution/processes can indicate snow where it is not expected
  • Added basic smoothing for snow depth (depth changes more slowly, over about 2 minutes minimum to maximum) – some instant terrain snow coverage shifts between certain levels are normal

Update 012524

  • Attempted to fix problem with ground snow conditions persisting incorrectly, which caused snow where there should not be
  • Adjusted conditions representation in all depiction modes for more intuitive weather conditions reporting
  • Adjusted map to display proper variable weather instead of globalized current weather at infinite distances, regardless of depiction mode and XP12 connection status
  • Adjusted turbulence effect based on feedback
  • Reduced turbulence effects overall
  • Fixed issue with excessive vertical force by up/downdraft, turbulence or thermals

Update 012324

  • Changed ground snow control method, allowing proper runway friction depiction (per current conditions) regardless of snow depth – Also allows ground snow control during hybrid or passive weather control modes
  • Added new Passive weather control mode, which uses XP12 live weather mode for weather depiction in the simulator, while all other AS features are enabled including weather reporting, planning, mapping, air effects, turbulence, ground snow control, etc. – Requires Live wx mode and overrides Hybrid wx mode when enabled

Update 012024

  • Fixed issue with download failure detection and auto switchover to DataNet that would cause download failure if METARs failed from NOAA
  • Added new experimental Control ground snow conditions feature/option, using GRIB snow depth data, forcing ground snow conditions (via runway_friction dataref) accordingly in XP12 when GRIB data indicates – This is defaulted ON – Use Map and hover over user aircraft, or the debug screen to see ground snow level information
  • Tuned apparent visual snow depth based on snow depth level
  • Updated documentation

Update 011024

  • Fixed issue with temperatures forcing to 0C in some cases, causing invalid temperature simulation as well as potential flight stability issues

Update 010424

  • Fixed issue related to historical downloads > 10 days on DataNet resulting in download failure

Update 010324

  • Fixed issue with cumulus clouds creating precip always (related to SDK cloud types)
  • Updated Navigraph data with AIRAC cycle 2210
  • New hybrid HiFi DataNet and NOAA data download system that uses NOAA for current/live weather and within past 10 days of historical weather, and automatically switches source if previously attempted source fails
  • Fixed issue with international sigmet parsing and recent Navigraph Data causing erroneous polygons for some FIR areas
  • Improved data coverage and resolution (geographic and temporal aspects)
  • Improved airmet/sigmet and storm processing accuracy
  • Slightly reduced turbulence effect in general
  • Reduced turbulence effect for light aircraft under 2000lbs
  • Fixed issue with negative VV elements in METAR strings causing corrupt download issue
  • UI Adjustments / fixes for toolbar background color in various pages/screens
  • Added new user option (Sim Depiction Options): Disable XP12 temperature setting – This is useful for helicopters, as using the XP12 SDK is causing occasional crashing due to apparent bug with temp layer setting
  • Updated documentation to reflect changes

Note: When using NOAA downloads, download process may take longer than HiFi DataNet especially using historical mode, which may take 2-3 minutes on average.  See the Activity status message in the Status section (top right) of the main application home page.

Update 070223

  • Improved smoothing of turbulence effect when transitioning into or out of turbulence events
  • Fixed duplicate/extra overlay drop down menu and label in Map screen
  • Attempted fix for occasional unexpected baro/altimeter issues especially when flying over mountainous terrain
  • Attempted elimination of negative aircraft performance during turbulence events
  • Reduced sharpness and amplitude of translational turbulence elements