Interesting...But as the Wind is the primary driver of Swell and Sea State, would we now want Stormy seas as well?

Stormy seas are kind of already in - the large swells are generally there.

I guess the primary goal would be severely disabling weather effects both in and out of vehicles/helicopters, heavy winds blowing light aircraft around, large reduction in visibility on the ground (and in the air), punishing winds while on the ground effecting both the stance, and walking ability (pushing/pulling the unit).

Okay, you've convinced me. Might even have tactical advantages, shooting might not be heard in a noisy Storm?

Yeah, exactly - if you tie lightning into thunder you can generally predict the thunder strike and hide your rifle's report. Using weather to both cover your movements, limit the ability of the enemy to re-enforce as quickly with light aircraft and the generally loud noises of hurricanes you can effectively hide your forces.

The possibilities are really endless of what you can mix into severe weather.

Ok, I understand severe weather but natural disasters?? Nobody is going to be fighting when the winds outside will just carry you away.

Tell that to the Korean war

If this is being programmed correctly or from the ground up, scalability should not be an issue. (ie. See Linux Kernel or Open Source Programming ;-)

Matter of fact, increasing the wind speed is likely trivially easy and can likely be performed on a whim. As to why they limited the wind speeds, I'm not sure.

Flight Gear can be configured for such extremes, but flight dynamics actually get a little awkward. (ie. Can fly a Cessna in hurricane strength winds and once aloft can never land or touch ground even though engine is off and nose is pointed down. Yea. Weird!)

It maybe, they have just stenciled in weather effects, and have not fully developed the effects to their full potential. Shrugs.

I hope so - I really really really would like to see the ability to make things just flat out nasty, weather wise.

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Landing a jet with huge side winds, I want that.

Certainly make use of those rudders!

This would be really cool I also would like to see tornados too

I tend to completely agree as well. I'm quite tired of playing the same old day time simulations for the past ten plus years here. And, even though there is a setting for specifying a second weather scenario, most servers do not implement it and still use the same old day time environments!

Also, instead of only having two sequential weather operations, should be a setting for completely random weather with also a setting specifying the gradient or quickness of weather changes.

These additional settings would be trivial to implement, and the random settings would be easier to implement or maintain on the less experienced or game servers with lazy admins. ;-)

The map editor it's self has these settings, you can choose the start weather, the ending result weather, and how long it will take to reach the ending result. It's neat and does function well, my issue is not with its function, but rather the extreme I can go with it. I can make it rainy, foggy, sorta windy, but none of it is really changing any of how you play, just aesthetically pleasing.

Eh. But the weather repeats like a skipping record player. ;-)

Random or real time weather will prevent boring or repetitive weather conditions.

Not only this, but map makers or server administrators will have an extremely simplified method of only having to tick one or two boxes versus configuring the semi-complicated manual setup already instituted.

In other words with real time weather, just enter an airport code of a region experiencing hurricane strength winds and your done! (If I'm not mistaken, real time weather is already implemented within FlightGear, likely finding weather via airport codes and meta data? ;-)

It would be cool if extreme weather conditions like huge waves could capsize boats and strong winds could cause aircraft to crash, it would make the weather a lot more interesting.

<me snickers ;->

Strong winds? Aircraft fly into hurricanes all the time for scientific reasons. Tornadoes on the other hand are not flown through as I know.

I would imagine you might not want to take off in that little bird with a 75+ mile an hour cross wind... I'm not a pilot, but I did stay at a holiday inn express last night...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080308131029AAExOXK

http://www.aoc.noaa.gov/faq.htm#canhelosbeusedinhurrrsch

Q. Can helicopters be used in hurricane research?

A. It is most unlikely that anyone would attempt to fly a helicopter into a hurricane. Such aircraft are not built to withstand the severe turbulence encountered in hurricane rainbands and eye walls. One reason is that a helicopter receives all of its lift from its rotating blades, and they are most likely to break off in hurricane conditions. Survival of the aircraft and crew would then be impossible.

While commercial type aircraft have been used in the past to penetrate hurricanes, NOAA and the US Air Force Reserves use sturdier P-3s and C-130s for their research and reconnaissance missions. Both aircraft are safe and reliable and take the punishment that hurricanes up through Category 5 can dish out.

I was referring to more sturdy aircraft that can handle the high winds.

It is very very unlikely to have a hurricane in Greece, because the Mediterranean Sea is fairly small for creating that phenomenon.

But the heavy wind with heavy rain would be nice addition to wheather.

I'd be happy with just "wind" . . . that actually does something. . . like affect flight mode, the rain, bullet flight, sound of voice comms . . . . and looks real. Dial in huge wind now and hit the ground . . . . seems the same like no wind.

Just seems more "real" to have SOME wind of some kind.

It's not windy enough with us old farts flying?