Well at the end of the patrol i had around 5 changes in weather, so no probs here, atleast with the 8km version however even with the Sensors.dat visuals set to max 16000 & precise 14000, time acceleration 256 or higher, the game goes to 1x
after the aircraft have dropped their first load!

I think the problem is not the visual range, but the response of the game to go from 512 to 1x, as soon as the aircraft is spotted the game should be at 1x. Sometimes I notice that an aircraft is not spotted till it's less than 1km, even that far at 1x you'd swear they were doing MAK 3!