About FLARE
Built by aviation enthusiasts. For aviation enthusiasts.
FLARE is a precision landing analysis tool for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. We measure what matters about a touchdown (flare timing, sink rate, lateral position) and turn every landing into a learning moment.
Our story
It started with a frustration.
We loved practicing landings in MSFS 2024, but the sim itself doesn't tell you how you landed, only that you did. A “soft” touchdown in the cockpit view could be a 600 fpm thump in real terms. The game just shrugged.
So we built our own measurement layer. SimConnect feeds us the flight data (vertical speed, ground speed, pitch, bank, G-forces, position) and we apply real-world FAA / EASA grading thresholds to each metric, with per-aircraft tuning for 498 default and add-on airframes. See exactly how each metric is calculated and which standards we cite → The result is a debrief that mirrors what a flight instructor would say after seeing your touchdown.
Within weeks, FLARE had become the tool we'd always wanted. Friends started asking for it. We polished it, packaged it, and put it out into the world.
What FLARE measures
Every dimension of a good landing.
Sink rate
Vertical speed at touchdown, the single most reliable indicator of a soft vs hard landing. Captured to single-fpm precision.
Flare timing
When you began the round-out, how long it took, how sharply the nose came up and how far you floated, with a Coach card when the flare was rushed, started high or ran long.
Centerline accuracy
Lateral offset from the runway centerline at touchdown, measured against the runway's real geometry.
Approach quality
Speed, bank and descent path checked at the 500 ft and 300 ft gates, from a trace that starts at 1,000 ft, with your approach speed compared against a Vref adjusted for your landing weight.
Side load & bounces
Sideslip and bank at touchdown, which load one main gear more than the other, plus every bounce after the first contact, each costing 10 points.
Per-aircraft scoring profiles
A 737 should touch down 240 to 600 m past the threshold; a Cessna 152 within the first 200 m. FLARE ships with profiles for 498 airframes across 66 sub-families and 28 categories (narrow-bodies, wide-bodies, biz-jets, GA, warbirds, fighters, hot-air balloons) each scored with its category's descent-rate curve, G-force tolerance and touchdown-zone window, and its own Vref and tail-strike pitch.
Want the full feature breakdown? See every feature →
The team
A small team of aviation enthusiasts.
FLARE is built by a team of developers who happen to be pilots, sim hobbyists, and flight instructors. We built it for ourselves first. Every feature exists because at least one of us asked for it after a bad landing.
We're independent and self-funded. No VC money, no growth-at-all-costs pressure, no surprise pivots. Just a small team obsessed with the craft of landing an airplane well, virtually or otherwise.
FLARE is the product of long evenings spent comparing real-world cockpit techniques to MSFS 2024 dynamics, reading FAA Practical Test Standards for fun, and arguing about whether a Cessna 152 should get full marks for a 1.1 G touchdown or only a 1.0 G one. (It's 1.1. Mostly.)
What we believe in
How FLARE is different.
- One-time purchase
- No subscriptions. No upgrade tiers. No surprise bills. Pay once, own forever, including every future update for the supported life of MSFS 2024.
- Honest measurement
- If the touchdown was rough, FLARE says so. No "everyone's a champion" fluff. Bad landings come with specific, actionable feedback so you can improve.
- Built for flight sim
- Native Windows app. No browser overlays, no in-sim panels eating your frame rate, no community-folder add-ons. FLARE talks to MSFS 2024 over Microsoft's SimConnect SDK and stays out of the way.
- Privacy first
- Your landings are saved on YOUR PC first. They sync to your private account so the web side works, and one switch in your settings turns that off. We never sell data, never run third-party trackers, and use a self-hosted analytics layer that doesn't track individuals.
- Real pilot input
- Every grading threshold cites a primary source: 14 CFR 25.473, Boeing AMM Ch.5-51, Airbus FCOM landing techniques, FAA AIM 5-4-7. The 498 airframe profiles inherit those thresholds through per-category curves (descent rate, G-force tolerance, touchdown-zone window) and carry their own Vref and, where it's published, tail-strike pitch. Reviewed by people who actually fly. Mirroring what an instructor would say is the bar.
- Long-term commitment
- FLARE will be supported for the supported life of MSFS 2024. New aircraft, sim updates, and pilot-requested features are folded in as they emerge. No "v2 paid upgrade" trap.
Land with intention. Every time.
Every landing teaches you something. FLARE makes sure you can hear what it's saying.