I don't fly jets but many my friends do in airlines. I've been told that hard landing is measured by g-meter which triggered a signal after certain limit exceeds . After that airframe is required to do maintenance inspection and pilot encouraged to confess and do post flight write up 

Since you're lacking the feel (inertia etc.) and spatial perception in a desktop simulator I'd say anything below 300 FPM is good and anything below 400-500 is okay. You can constantly do 100-200, but you'd need to intentionally go for this and neglect other (much more important) safety parameters like touchdown zone, centerline etc. Since deceleration after landing is extremely unrealistic in MSFS (= too much), you won't really have any consequences from landing on a wet runway behind the touchdown zone etc. I've done landings in MSFS (e.g. when I just wanted to finish and go to bed) I'd get killed with in real life. I think I once landed the PMDG 737 at near MLW on a wet runway with about 2000 feet of runway remaining and still was able to stop before the end of the runway. I don't remember the FPM, though 🙂

17 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

Since deceleration after landing is extremely unrealistic in MSFS (= too much)

I've noticed this and I've been meaning to land without applying the auto-brake to see if makes evens it out a bit. 

7 hours ago, g-liner said:

It’s just an aspect of the sim and IRL flying and people like trying to improve or do well. Don’t think real pilots don’t obsess about smooth landings though.
 

The worst is when you bang it in IRL and then nobody says anything in the flightdeck as you all know it was rubbish, then you leave the flightdeck and you get (usually unconstructive) feedback from the passengers and crew. 
 

It’s all in your mind though. Like any skill if you know how to do it and have a repeatable technique and relax it usually works out. So I usually back myself and announce it’s going to be awesome on final and then it’s more entertaining for the f/o when it isn’t. 
 

Obviously the weather, runway and aircraft weight plus the aircraft type and geometry of the gear etc all make a difference too. 
 

The 787 is particularly easy to land smoothly though especially with the HUD. It really is a fantastic aircraft to fly IRL and now in the sim thanks to WT also. 

Thank you for making me feel even worse about my MSFS 787 'firm' landings 🙂

In case anyone is curious, Boeing published a circular in 2014 where they noted that the G force on landing was actually hard to determine with instruments. Obviously it's important to determine when a hard landing has occurred, so the aircraft can be inspected. But measuring a hard landing is tricky.

First, there's the question of where. The aircraft won't accelerate at the same rate everywhere along the airframe, because there is elasticity built in; in addition to that, the tires and gear struts compress, and they don't touch down all at once. Then there's the problem of when. The flight data recorders store data at up to 16 samples per second, which may not be fast enough to capture the peak acceleration (which may be of arbitrarily short duration). So while Boeing has built in recorders near the aircraft's CG that can trigger alarms for inspections, they decided that the subjective feeling of a "hard landing" by the flight crew is just as valid an indicator, if not even more consistently reliable, than on-board accelerometers.

What then is a "hard landing"? Pilot consensus (yes, it's been researched) is that a touchdown at greater than about 4 f/s (which translates to 240 fpm) feels pretty hard.

Boeing airliners are designed for up to 10 f/s at or below max landing weight, and 6 f/s above max landing weight, which of course are 600 fpm and 360 fpm respectively. So you have plenty of headroom between what is uniformly experienced as a "hard landing" and the actual design limits of the aircraft. But when you feel that hard landing, which again is over roughly 240 fpm -- or when the warning is tripped -- then you have to let the engineers know because an inspection is required, even if the landing was below what the aircraft should be able to take.

 

 

In my 787 flight crew training manual Boeing states 

“Boeing considers pilot reporting as the sole determination of a hard landing. Landing acceleration data from the airplane Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) can be used to determine the level of inspections required after a pilot report of a hard landing, but not to determine if a hard landing was made.”

and also

“Boeing airplanes are designed to withstand touchdown rates well above typical touchdown rates seen during daily operations. Even a perceived hard landing is usually well below these design criteria. Boeing policy is that a pilot report is the only factor that consistently identifies a hard landing. If the pilot believes that a hard landing may have occurred, it should be reported. A maintenance inspection will determine if further maintenance action is needed.
Note: Whenreportinghardlandings,thereportshouldspecifyifthelandingwas hard on the nose gear only, hard on the main gear only or hard on both main and nose gear. Specify if the landing was a hard bounced landing.
Note: A bounced landing is defined as a landing where both main gears contact the ground and then both main gears leave the ground prior to landing”
 

My airline gives further guidance also. 

13 hours ago, El Diablito said:

I've noticed this and I've been meaning to land without applying the auto-brake to see if makes evens it out a bit. 

The same can be said in P3D. I have always used the thrust reversers ONLY down to 75-80 knots (depending on whether I am flying the 737 or 777), and then manual braking ONLY from that point. This makes the rollout a bit more realistic.