Thanks for taking the time to have a look at this and to respond. To say "
Maybe you have an issue inserting manual input for your QNH 1005" is probably an understatement
The weather system moves in mysterious ways and the more I look into it the more of a mystery it becomes to me. These are just my thoughts on this, I do not claim to be an expert:
Firstly, your settings are for Basic Weather. I agree that this gives an indicated alt of what it should be (about 380ft) at VECA. AFAIK this means there will be not be the thunderclouds, lightning, rain, and more importantly gusting/veering wind that is envisaged for the FlightNight scenario. However, setting detailed weather + Live Data doesn't change the Alt readings for me (today!).
But with the custom METAR I get about 1080 ft at VECA. A curious thing was that
Basic Weather -> Manual Configuration --> QNH (inHg) was reading 28.8995 which is about 979 mb
If I go to
Equipment -> Instrument settings and put 979 mb values into it the altimeter is accurate.
Alternatively if I change
Basic Weather -> Manual Configuration --> QNH (inHg) to 29.68 (ie: Q1005), then CLOSE it
I can set
Equipment -> Instrument settings and put 1005 mb into it and it works ok
It appears that this
Basic Weather -> Manual Configuration --> QNH (inHg) value is not being set up properly.
Pasting the METAR directly into the fgfs launcher gives a better result (720 ft at VECA)
Going back and choosing detailed weather + Live Data for VECA I saw that
Basic Weather -> Manual Configuration --> QNH (inHg) got set to 29.5682 As if by magic! It cannot be a coincidence. This is 1001 which is close to what live data is (Q1002 as I write).
Strange, or what?
I decided against live weather for various reasons, including:
FlightNights are a fixed duration and, without a decent tailwind it would not be possible with these aircraft.
The custom-scenery half-time break landing zone is impractical without a decent headwind at about 40 deg.
This 40 deg wind also makes the takeoff and landing runways (including diversion ones in India) more practical.
One thing that seems to have been overlooked by me (amongst many others beforehand) is what is shown clearly near to your "Basic Weather" selection which says:
"
Recommended for use with Multiplayer". Maybe that is the way to go. This one works quite well: