Feather-touch landings are not my strongest suit either. A lot of times if
you’re coming out of an IFR flight you have other things on your mind than
getting set up for a perfect landing, and you may be a bit high and hot as
well. I admit I’m impressed by pilots who grease it every time, but I’m
just as impressed by some of these same pilots’ low and slow maneuvering
abilities. Short patterns, slips, engine-out landings. I demonstrate these
things, like everyone else, on every BFR, but some pilots are really good
at them.
One thing for sure is that MSFS or any really affordable desktop sim is no
help at all, as their flying characteristics are wildly unrealistic for
this type of work, and even the typical flight school sims (Frasca, etc)
don’t do much better in this particular aspect. It would be really useful
if we could develop a reasonably priced, full motion simulator with good
fidelity for this type of training. If we could get not 6 but 60 landings
in an hour’s time, with all different wind conditions and really good
fidelity I’m sure we could reduce the number of landing incidents. Probably
wouldn’t save a lot of lives, but might help with insurance rates.