Approach and Landing Practice (or Create Landing Challenge) from World Map

Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Wishlist
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Here’s a wish, in two parts:

  1. That no one else has already posted about this and I’m just not good at searching the forums, and

  2. That there was a native way to “roll your own” landing challenge at any airport from the World Map.

Such that if you clicked on an airport, one of the options (in addition to “set as departure”, “set as arrival”, and “zoom to details”) would be “Create Landing Challenge.”

If you clicked on that, the sim would prompt you to select the aircraft that you wanted to fly. Once selected, and maybe depending on which aircraft you selected, you could then get a view of available STARS (if any) and available published approaches (if any) and select one to fly. Then it would prompt you to select predefined weather modes (e.g. Stormy, Windy, Low Visibility, Clear Weather, etc.) or let you dial in the exact environmental parameters you would like to train/play in.

If no STAR/APPCH was available, or you are not trying to practice realistic approaches at that moment, you could set your position on a map and then select desired altitude and starting point (a published fix or in thin air) within a reasonable distance from the airport (maybe thirty miles) and/or a straight-in distance from the end of a runway. Once you dialed in your desired parameters, the plane would be placed and properly (or at least generally) configured for a descent.

My wish is a concept, but I think it would be really cool, and especially attractive to our new friends who will soon be joining the flight simulation world via XBOX.

It’s essentially a sort of built in kit to very easily design, customize, and then execute your own landing challenge - as real as it gets or as crazy as you want - within the sim. It offers both an avenue for fun and an avenue to practice real life aviation skills.

Perhaps users could then easily save and share landing challenges with others by posting a file in the Forums, etc.

Thanks,

Joe

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@Joe8617, Not sure if you tried, but if you select only an arrival airport with no departure, it will start you in the air with gear and flaps down, off the end of the runway. But not very customizable. I like your idea of expanding on this a bit for more formal approach practice, etc.

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Thank you @JuiceBox7535 . And thanks for the vote. Yes, I was aware of that functionality, though I bet most people aren’t yet.

But as you mention, it is fairly rudimentary at this stage of development, and I am proposing that an expansion of that initial capability could be a great new feature. Approaches and landings are definitely my favorite aspect of flight simulations and I suspect I’m not alone. And it gives one (especially a new flight simmer) a way to get in the air and start learning quickly.

-Joe

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I also find making a flight plan from VMMC (Macau) to VHHH (Hong-Kong) is a good place to practice landing. The reason why I don’t like the select arrival only to practice landing is that you only have a short window of time to get everything set up and configure for landing. Which is usually when you’re trying to do a lot of things to be very rushed and difficult to keep calm.

So at least with a full low altitude IFR flight plan between Macau and Hong-Kong. It should give you plenty of time and distance to practice both take off and landing. But also very close to each other that it wouldn’t take you too much time. But this is just personal preference.

Hong-Kong also has multiple approaches that you can learn, from visual, RNAV, and even multiple categories of ILS certification. So many options to choose from, and close enough to have a short flight to practice both take off and approaches and landing.

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