What are the requirements of the sim, to log a take off and a landing?

I have logged hundreds and hundreds of landings in the sim and a fair few crashes if I am honest but my logbook shows that I have made many more landings than take-offs. I could understand if I had more take-offs than landings due to crashes but I have about 50 more landings than take-offs.

What am I missing here?

I have many take-offs not logged, even thou these were perfectly normal take-offs (at least imho). That happens at different airports, with different planes - I fail to see any logic or system in this behavior.

The only way that I ever seem to get a take off logged is to use the in game atc to rquest taxi and then again use atc to request takeoff.

Spawning on the runway, unless the airport is closed due to ‘weather’ seems to automatically grant take off clearnace and such take offs will be logged. Spawning cold and dark seem to require atc clearance before it is logged.

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I rarely head to a parking spot and most of my landings are logged

Xbox S if that makes a difference

I can vouch that since using FS2020 in September 2020, if you depart an uncontrolled airport without first extinguishing the taxi to runway ribbon, your takeoff will NEVER be logged. If I have selected another runway for takeoff, I still have to taxi to and extinguish whatever ribbon the sim generates to some other runway, and then taxi to my selected runway.

I do not have this problem at airports with towers. At KOAK, I now always ignore the taxi ribbon to taxiway W1 because there is a sinkhole across the full width of the runway at the start of runway 30 that will destroy the landing gear if the speed exceeds 5 knots. Instead, I taxi to the hold at taxiway W3, ask for and receive clearance, the clearance itself seems to extinguish the taxi ribbon in front of me that eventually would have led me back to taxiway W1, and the takeoff is recorded in the log.

So yes, I have more landings than takeoffs, and ALL of the takeoffs that were not recorded in the log were at uncontrolled airports where I did not extinguish the taxi ribbon.

Hope that helps.

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I’ve never seen a taxi ribbon, when do you see this?

I always start cold and dark at some parking spot at both controlled and uncontrolled airports.

At controlled airports, I always request a taxi and later a takeoff clearance. As a result, I always get my takeoff logged, even if I taxi directly to some other taxiway than the one I am directed to by ATC. At controlled airports, it seems that getting clearance for takeoff is all that is required for a takeoff to be recorded in the log.

Starting cold and dark at uncontrolled airports requires extinguishing whatever taxi ribbon that the sim generates after announcing to traffic that you are taxing to the runway and you start taxing, as described in my 1st post on this topic. When I am stopped just before entering the runway, I always announce my departure to traffic, so I do not know if that is also required for a takeoff to be recorded in the log.

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The taxi ribbon feature is under Options - Assistance Options - Navigation Aids - Taxi Ribbon - ON/OFF.

I use Subtle Taxi Ribbon to tone the ribbon down and remove the parking corral on arrival.

At controlled airports, the ribbon appears after you have requested and received a taxi for departure and after you have requested and received a taxi to gate or parking.

At uncontrolled airports, the ribbon appears after you announce you are taxing to a runway and start your taxi.

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Well, it makes sense for the sim to only log a take-off if correct ATC procedure is followed, but by that logic, it should only log a landing if correct ATC procedure is followed. That doesn’t seem to be the case.

As far as taxi ribbons are concerned, I have never used this aid and I might start using it as it sounds quite useful. Is it the only criteria for logging a landing/take-off though? It can’t be because I have 740 landings logged and I never follow ATC commands after landing, I just find a spot and park up.

Landings seem to be recorded almost no matter what you do. Even landing in places where there isn’t at airstrip. I used to think the landings required ATC interaction, and perhaps it was, but it isn’t now. If I conduct a flight, and opt not to use ATC, I might see a single takeoff, and 22 landings, during a bush flight trip for example.

For the takeoffs to register, ATC interaction is needed. At a controlled airfield, this is easy. Contact tower/ground, request takeoff/taxi, hold short, request takeoff, job done. At an uncontrolled field, first request taxi, if you have assists on follow the markers to the runway, then announce takeoff. That should log the takeoff.

What really seems to drive it all is what’s in the pop-up “Objectives” window. It indicates what the sim is expecting you to do next. In the example of the uncontrolled field, in the ATC dialogue, if you don’t request taxi first, and instead announce takeoff, I don’t believe it will log your take off. Taxi is requires first, and you will see this will nudge the “Objectives” window along to the next stage.

I made a post describing these various stages, from startup to shutdown, some time ago. I have since noticed some different objectives stages that sometimes pop up so the list below is not exhaustive.

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I had a similar issue and it was because I had developer mode on. So now I always switch developer mode off before starting a flight…, (or kick myself after I’ve flown for several hours and realise I forgot to turn it off before I started.)

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That will cause no log to be created at all, rather than a landing or takeoff not getting logged.

In the example of Bush trips, this seems fundamentally flawed. Why bother flying multiple legs of a bush trip (with no access to ATC) if your efforts are not rewarded in the logging system. I personally want to do some bush trips but with MSFS denying the ability to use proper ATC approach procedures makes it far less rewarding than just flying your own self-built bush trips.

Don’t misunderstand me, it can be done. But you have to jump though some hoops to get them to log. When I say ATC, think of CTAF in the cad of an uncontrolled field. You still need to go through the motions, as you would in real life, to get the takeoffs of log. Skip any step, and it breaks the chain of events that allows the events to be logged, the Objectives window tells you all you need to know, and will show if you are out of step.

For example, after takeoff you might see the objectives window show that it expects you to be taxiing to your destination. That would be a sure indicator that your takeoff didn’t get logged as it thinks you are still on the ground.

I do all these things people suggest above, and yet, loggings are never, ever consistent. Some days it logs some of my landings, but no take offs, and some days it logs my take offs and no landings. I always park, I always use ATC (CTAF included at uncontrolled fields), just like when I fly.

The log book is completely broken and useless.

I’d love to see a log book editing feature, as well as the ability to download my logbook.

Hopefully someday they get their act together and realize that a touch and go counts as a landing, and that if your wheels leave the ground, that’s a takeoff. Granted, on the leave the ground thing and touch and go thing, somehow they have to filter out bouncing down the runway.

Otherwise, there should not be any limitation on using ATC or having to park and or shut down or turn off the radio. What ridiculousness is that??? Since when does any of that count when a pilot writes a flight in their logbook? And who in the world thought a flight should end before I’ve completely shut down my plane and exited it… THROUGH THE DOOR OR CANOPY WHICH SHOULD OPEN! (Yeah, that makes me angry as well). And if I don’t take off or land… Why is it recording a record in my log book!?!

I know they’ve got some people working on the log book and they’ve said they’re working on fixing it. Hopefully they’re pilots who have a clue as to how a log book is used.

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Yesterday, after I flew a leg of a bush trip, I checked my logbook and it showed 3 take-offs and 1 landing…■■■?!!

Log book is all over the place.

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The thing about the log…dont rely on it. I have 1800+ hours registered in steam, in the game I have about 10 hours. Go Figure…

If you really need a log get little nav map or something of the sorts of that …

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Well the logbook I believe mostly counts air time only extracting out the time you spend in menu for example.

Regardless before the 1st of Jan I had over 1000hours, and then an update, and boom all was gone. Then I got to 400 hours and another update and all was gone ad nauseum…

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Not really. Stopping and shutting down the engine on the runway will count as a full landing in both logbook and profile.

(I have found plenty of small isolated airstrips in remote areas where simply leaving the runway seems to take you outside of some perimeter and results in a “vicinity” rather than full landing to be logged.

I have also encountered at least one airport with ATC control that directs you to parking which is outside of this perimeter. At this airport shut down on runway gives a clean landing, following ATC instructions to the parking spot they automatically chose results in “vicinity”