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 practising 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 every variable — vertical speed, ground speed, pitch, bank, lateral offset, G-forces — and we apply real-world FAA / EASA grading thresholds to each metric, with per-aircraft tuning for 451 default + payware 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 progressively the pitch came up, and whether the timing matched the aircraft's reference profile.
Centerline accuracy
Lateral offset from runway centerline at touchdown, plus drift over the last 100 ft of the approach.
Approach quality
Glide-slope deviation, PAPI / VASI alignment, airspeed stability — captured for the final 500 ft.
Side load & bounces
Crab angle, drift correction, lateral G at impact, and any subsequent bounces — caught and graded individually.
Per-aircraft scoring profiles
A 700 fpm touchdown is normal in a 737, ugly in a 152. FLARE ships with profiles for 451 airframes across 26 categories — narrow-bodies, wide-bodies, biz-jets, GA, warbirds, fighters, hot-air balloons — each with its own descent-rate curve, G-force tolerance, tail-strike pitch, and TDZ window.
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 reward a 0.5 G touchdown or only a 0.3 G one. (It's 0.5. 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 live on YOUR PC by default. The optional portal sync is exactly that — optional. 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 451 airframe profiles inherit those thresholds through per-category curves (descent rate, G-force tolerance, tail-strike pitch, TDZ window). 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.