41 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Thanks. Will try some patterns. 

In the sim (2024), there’s some kind of video recording option in the toolbar. Can I use that?

I've never used the replay feature.  I never really used that for getting better.  Gees is great, just start it before your flight and hide the window, then it pops up automatically on landing then goes away after a bit.  

With a bit of practice, you'll learn when it isn't right fairly quickly.  Gees will count your bounces too and let you know when you hit too hard.  Even after 4-5 touch and gos, you'll start to "feel" a lot more of when things are going well or not.  

When all is well, your aiming point and runway markings should stay in a fixed position on final.  Again, speed management is key, it is so easy for any plane to get going too fast.  I really have to work to get the A2A Comanche slowed down before getting in the pattern.  

 

And when you have had some practice, try this one:

 

11 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

I’m doing lots of short flights with NeoFly in a loaded Kodiak (previously) or C208 (now) to practise my hand flying and I’m consistently getting a comment from the NeoFly dispatcher that my landing was rough. I’m not denying it… most of the time I’m coming in too high and too fast. I’ve even tried circling the pattern to bleed off some altitude and speed. Still not good. My wife said maybe I should switch to helicopters LOL.  

I think two things would help…

1. A way to review my landings from outside to get a better feel for my approach. Can I do that in 2024 now? Or do I need a third party utility?

2. I could use some tips… How far out and how fast should I be at 1000 feet? And 500’? Sometimes I’m crossing the airport property line at 500’ and that’s just too high as I’ll be lucky to catch the end of a regional runway doing that. What should I be shooting for?

Thanks for any advice. 

Cheers, 
-Chris 

don’t buy anything. Everything you need is inside the cockpit 👍

Run the landing pattern for up to an hour every once in awhile.

most glide slopes are 3 degrees. So for every mile away you are from the touchdown point, you should be at N-mile x 300 feet altitude above ground. E.g., 5 miles is 1500’, 10 mi is 3000 ft. 

Start flying simple ILS finals to get the proper runway sight picture. 

Google the landing speeds for those two aircraft (ideally, look it up in the addon user guide). 

I run the Kodiak around 100 when approaching the airport and when entering the pattern. 

(Note: trimming your aircraft for “hands off” level-ish flight is extremely important. As you change power, slow down, and extend flaps, you will need to constantly re-adjust the trim. If you’re fighting the controls because you’re out of trim, it’ll be nigh impossible to establish a Stable Approach)

Downwind/Long Final: slowing down through 90 - 80 with increasing flaps as speed reduces  

Base/Short Final, slowing down to >70+ depending on load & winds  (higher = faster). Full flaps.

Generally keeping it there down through just off the runway, pre-flare. 

it’s been awhile, but keep in mind that some aircraft need at least some power on all the way thru touchdown. Best to either look it up or experiment with the addon as they tend to vary from the IRL techniques somewhat. 

gradually ease the power back and gradually lift the nose so that you’re descending ever so slowly till touchdown

P.s.: helicopters are even harder to slow down than aircraft 😁

Edited July 23, 2025Jul 23 by UrgentSiesta

There’s a lot to be said for the circuit.
I spend most, probably 75% of my sim time just flying circuits in different aircraft.

Each aircraft will have set speeds, power settings and configurations for flying a circuit and it’s fun to look those up and fly the circuit properly.

You really get to know your aircraft by flying circuits, I don’t just fly visual circuits but also higher (3000ft) IFR circuits to the ILS.

One of, if not THE best days in my flying career was an afternoon spent flying visual circuits in a real 747-400, unbelievable fun.

23 minutes ago, jon b said:

One of, if not THE best days in my flying career was an afternoon spent flying visual circuits in a real 747-400, unbelievable fun.

❤️

18 minutes ago, jon b said:

One of, if not THE best days in my flying career was an afternoon spent flying visual circuits in a real 747-400, unbelievable fun.

That was the USAF way! Towards the end my military time, they encouraged use to start doing proficiency sorties in the sim vs the jet. I think you could log up to 30 to 50% of your requirements in the sim and the rest had to be done in the jet. At a minimum you had to at least do a takeoff, landing, go around, VFR pattern, precision(from holding preferred) and a non precision to log a pro sortie. Knock those out and then throw the next guy in during vectors in the RADAR pattern. 

10 minutes ago, G550flyer said:

That was the USAF way! Towards the end my military time, they encouraged use to start doing proficiency sorties in the sim vs the jet. I think you could log up to 30 to 50% of your requirements in the sim and the rest had to be done in the jet

The ex RAF guys tell me stories about in years gone by being able to book out a Tristar or VC10 and go and fly circuits. It must have been great in those days.

Nowadays the long haul carriers seemed to have stopped recruiting military fast jet guys and pilots who don’t qualify for the zero flight time simulator course because they’re now think it’s too expensive to send a real jet off doing circuits.

4 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

In the sim (2024), there’s some kind of video recording option in the toolbar. Can I use that?

You can use FCR to both watch your approach/landing (by recording the landing and then setting up the drone cam by the runway to watch) and to re-fly your landing as well (you can play back and then take control, but some of the more complex aircraft may end up in weird states).

FSI Panel lets you set up repeatable landings and also gives a detailed analysis of the landing - including how far left or right of the centreline you touchdown. I couldn't see the other apps offering that metric (could be wrong ofc) but it's pretty useful / important. 

Those career apps are cool, but come with some unrealistic requirements at times. As long as you are on glide path, on speed and on aimpoint, that's what matters. Touch down rate isn't a skill, but a result of procedures. I never critiqued anyone for touch downs unless they were off center line, fast/slow, lack of crosswind controls or outside the touch down zone. Jets are flown onto the runway mainly after applying the flare procedure. If you are yoke pumping for a soft touch down or leaving in/adding power, how far down are you touching? How far below Vref are you touching down? You quickly get into tail strike or overrun situations. Once you make that a habit, you set yourself up for failure. For example, a DC10-30 landing on a wet 7000FT runway at 430,000 pounds. Your landing distance at flaps 35 is about 6400FT. If you do flaps 50, you are 5 knots slower and will maybe be around 5900 or so. When you touch down, you will be well into the straps and shuddering from anti skid cycling if you do it right. The pucker factor meter will be about 1/4 up if you are comfortable. Imagine if you have made a habit of greasers and suddenly landing on a short and wet runway. You won't even really notice it visually until you put the nose down. If you want to work on softer landings, I'd rather you do a slower power pull and flare up to the upper range of the 2 to 3 degree pitch change. 

I contacted the guys at NEO and recommended allowing minimum runway length/widths and taxi way width settings for aircraft. Don't show me flights below this setting. Fragile cargo, what??? The only time I've been concerned about fragility of my payload is during med evac flights. I had to worry about cabin differential pressure and how high of a cabin altitude with head injuries. I have had flights where surgeries were done inflight, so I need to keep the medical director in back on notice of turbulence and clouds. The only time I would consider touch down rate is if I'm landing over weight, have a landing gear issue(one or more retracted) or ditching. In those cases, the procedure will list a max sink rate at touch down. I some how remember 360 for sink if above max weight in the DC10. It's an odd number. Even those time limited flights. In reality, you would be sitting standby or doing alert. In that case, you will have an allotted response time to take that flight. Some folk like to fly realistically and with ATC, so you have to account for preflight/thru flight time + ATC + flight time and don't show flights beneath that time. In a lot of cases, it's easier to just plan a flight yourself and how you want to do it vs some career mode setup/app.     

Two summarize landing there two way to do it. Airforce way or NAVY way

 

50 minutes ago, jon b said:

The ex RAF guys tell me stories about in years gone by being able to book out a Tristar or VC10 and go and fly circuits. It must have been great in those days.

It was awesome! Especially if you wanted to make a day of it. When I was flying presidential airlift duty in Gulfstreams, At the training center, you would take two students out for a day. You would get the first one in the seat and hit one or two airports to knock out the profile. You would full stop, button up the jet and go grab lunch. You come back, throw the next one in the seat, do some approaches and drop into another airport to finish up and head back. If you were smart, you knock out both and then land for lunch. That way after your belly is full, you just fly home and get one to a full stop. Those were the days man! Takeoff at 7AM and back on the ground no later than 3PM. On the other days, you would do the same, but 7 to 12 or 12 to 3 with no lunch stop. 

Edited July 23, 2025Jul 23 by G550flyer
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8 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

Two summarize landing there two way to do it. Airforce way or NAVY way

 

🤣🤣That carrier style!

Edited July 23, 2025Jul 23 by G550flyer
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To report back after an evening of running touch and go patterns...

I started by doing an ILS approach to get a feel for what it should look like.

I then used the great rule of thumb someone else recommended which is 300ft per 1 mile distance. So When I'm 5 miles out I should be at 1500 feet, 1000 feet around 3 miles, and 500 feet about 1.5 miles out.

All of this allowed me to get a much better approach angle.

Now interestingly, I found myself fighting the C208 more in terms of getting it to go down... it seems very floaty. Even at low torque settings it wants to float forever it seems. So I switched back to the Kodiak, and that plane is the opposite... it drops out of the sky at low torque so I need to be much more careful with the throttle. So pick your poison I guess.

Thanks again to all that chimed in with some tips and advice... much appreciated!

Edited July 24, 2025Jul 24 by Virtual-Chris

Give yourself more time to get a stable approach.  Aircraft performance charts should give you the speed, alt, flaps, load configurations to get the correct airspeed at each phase.  Airport charts (if any) will give you correct procedures and altitudes to hit on approach.  Finally wind speed and direction to adjust as needed.

I like to start my decent a little earlier and reduce decent rate which gives me more control over speed.