Pilots are taught to fly towards an aiming point ahead of the touchdown zone when learning how to land. On a stabilized approach, the aiming point remains “stationary” in the windshield: points on the ground away from the aiming point flow outwards from it. At high speeds or on short final, this motion (optical flow) is quite apparent. A distance away from the runway, however, the motion is much more subtle and it takes some practice to read it and judge the approach. Flight simulators present a unique opportunity to judge and tune this sense of optical flow by displaying the flight path vector (FPV).
Image Credit: J. Entzinger, Shinji Suzuki
See research paper.
To my knowledge, however, Microsoft Flight Simulator only offers this view within the HUD on certain aircraft. I would like the ability to toggle a HUD-like view on any aircraft, however, as this view would be particularly helpful when flying GA aircraft in the simulator. The power of such a display as a learning aid is that it can be toggled on and off. Thus, the student can try to fly towards an aiming point, turn the FPV indicator on, and see where the airplane is actually flying to. On Google Earth Flight Simulator, the HUD can be toggled with the H key on the keyboard, for instance.
In this image, the red arrows highlight the aiming point used for this F-16 landing. The small green indicator between them is the Google Earth FPV indicator.
X-Plane 12 also offers a clean HUD with an FPV indicator that developers can implement.
Image Credit: VSKYLABS YouTube Channel.