Questions, answered.

A real-world weather engine for flight simulators. It reads the weather that is happening now, builds the whole column of air around your aircraft, from the surface to the flight levels, and keeps your simulator matched to it for the entire flight.

It is a desktop app that does the work and shows you the weather like a briefing, plus a small in-sim panel that flies it into Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, from Steam or the Microsoft Store, and X-Plane 12, all on 64-bit Windows 10 or 11.

Each MSFS simulator has its own StrataWx app, installed, activated and updated on its own. StrataWx for X-Plane 12 is a separate build on its own licence.

MSFS has no way for an add-on to paint the sky directly. What it accepts is a complete weather state, so StrataWx builds one for exactly where you are and hands it over again and again as you fly, easing each change in at the speed you choose.

The in-sim panel is what keeps the simulator matched to the app. It is copied into your Community folder for you, and MSFS loads it when the simulator starts.

Yes. You buy StrataWx once on StrataSim Shop, and every update to a simulator you own is free. Adding the other MSFS simulator later is a small cross-grade, never a second full purchase.

Yes. What conflicts is two weather engines running at once, because both set the one sky MSFS has. StrataWx does not start while Active Sky FS is running, and if Active Sky FS starts afterwards, StrataWx warns you and offers to close it. How the two compare.

Very little. The heavy work happens in the StrataWx app, outside the simulator, so MSFS only ever receives a finished weather state.

On MSFS 2024 the heaviest setting is Continuous transitions, which sends a stream of in-between weather instead of one update. If the weather moving ever costs you frames, that is the switch to turn off first.

Three at once, per copy. Install it on your sim PC, your laptop and a spare, and manage them from your StrataSim Shop library.

Live and Historical read real observations as they happen, so they need an internet connection. Sandbox needs none.

Your licence renews online in the background. If your connection drops, an activated PC keeps working for at least two days, and up to seven.

Not as cells. StrataWx sends MSFS one precipitation value for the whole sky, so no shape or position reaches the simulator and an onboard radar cannot paint an injected cell. Some add-on aircraft do respond to injected rain as a uniform intensity, and pilots have told us so, but we have not verified what any particular radar reads.

StrataWx draws its own precipitation scope and hazard picture in the app, which is where you plan around a cell.

Any time. Close the app and MSFS draws its own weather again, with nothing to restore. Or set Cloud depiction to MSFS Live in Settings: the simulator draws its own weather, and StrataWx sends nothing and shows you the real weather beside it.

Historical rebuilds a past day from the ERA5 reanalysis archive. ERA5 trails real time by about five days, so anything more recent is Live's job.

Buy it on StrataSim Shop, then install it from your library, which installs and activates it on your PC. Start StrataWx, then the simulator. The whole thing, step by step.

No. Sign in to StrataSim Shop with the email on your licence and link your StrataWx licence. Your purchase moves into your library and installs from there.

StrataWx keeps itself current in the background, and every update is free. Each download is checksum-verified, and the updater never moves you backwards. What changed, release by release.

Purchases follow the StrataSim Shop refund policy. If something is not working, open a ticket: we would much rather get you flying.