Landing Monitor XP12 – Version 1.0.3

Landing Monitor XP12 is a complete landing-analysis tool for X-Plane 12, designed to provide detailed touchdown, flare and rollout feedback after every flight.

The plugin records the final approach from approximately 50 ft radio altitude, analyses the pilot’s longitudinal control input, detects the pre-flare and flare phases, identifies the landing runway, measures centerline performance and calculates a detailed Landing Score.

It is intended for flight-simulation analysis and training.

Main Features

Real-Time Flight Data

A configurable compact HUD displays:

• Total, longitudinal, lateral and vertical acceleration
• Maximum total acceleration
• IAS, TAS and groundspeed
• Pitch, roll, angle of attack and crab angle
• Thrust, drag, lift and aircraft weight
• Lift-to-weight and thrust-to-drag ratios
• Landing Monitor status
• Current script version

Every item can be enabled or disabled independently.

Detailed Touchdown Analysis

After landing, the plugin records and displays:

• Landing rate
• Peak G
• Vertical impact energy
• Touchdown IAS and groundspeed
• Pitch, roll and angle of attack
• Crab angle
• Heading and track error
• Headwind and crosswind components
• Bounce count
• Runway and airport identification
• Distance from the runway threshold
• Signed centerline deviation in metres and feet
• Landing Score and Landing Quality

Peak G is captured during the first 0.75 seconds following initial contact.

Relative Flare and Pre-Flare Detection

Version 1.0.3 introduces a fully relative flare-detection system based only on the filtered longitudinal joystick-deflection curve.

The algorithm does not require a fixed joystick percentage and does not use pitch, vertical speed or angle of attack to validate the flare.

• FLARE is selected from the first ascending control-input phase reaching more than 80% of the maximum filtered joystick deflection recorded during that landing.
• PRE-FLARE is selected from the last earlier ascending phase reaching more than 50% of the same maximum.
• A relative slope check refines the effective beginning of the flare and prevents a long, nearly flat control-input section from placing the marker too early.

This relative method allows the detector to adapt to aircraft requiring very different control-input amplitudes.

Flare & Rollout Analysis Graphs

The analysis window provides synchronized graphs for:

• Vertical speed to touchdown
• Filtered longitudinal joystick deflection
• Aircraft pitch
• Radio altitude
• Lateral deviation during rollout

The graphs include clearly identified:

• PRE-FLARE marker
• FLARE marker
• TOUCHDOWN marker
• Airport and runway
• Detection thresholds and phase information

Vertical speed and joystick data stop at touchdown, while pitch and radio-altimeter data continue for two additional seconds. Rollout deviation continues until 30 kt or until a runway exit is detected.

Accurate Runway Selection

The runway database respects the priority order defined in scenery_packs.ini.

For each airport, the first enabled scenery providing physical runway data is retained, while lower-priority duplicate definitions are ignored.

At touchdown, the plugin uses a geographic runway index and performs exact geometry calculations on no more than 24 nearby candidates. This avoids scanning the complete global runway database during landing and helps ensure that custom-airport geometry is used correctly.

Revised Landing Score

The Version 1.0.3 Landing Score is based on four categories:

• Centerline deviation: 30 points
• Flare or pre-flare score distance: 25 points
• Wind-aware crab angle: 20 points
• Peak G: 25 points

Full centerline credit is awarded inside ±1 metre.

The accepted crab-angle range changes according to the crosswind component:

• Crosswind below 5 kt: ±1°
• Crosswind from 5 to 15 kt: ±2°
• Crosswind above 15 kt: ±3°

Landing Quality is based on Peak G rather than vertical speed. Landing rate remains displayed and logged but does not affect the score.

Automatic Post-Landing Display

When enabled, applying at least 50% parking brake after a finalized landing automatically opens:

• Landing Monitor
• Flare & Rollout Analysis

The trigger reads two parking-brake DataRefs, stores the detected state and retries the deferred window-opening request until both windows are confirmed.

The automatic display can be disabled in Settings without disabling monitoring, scoring, graph recording or CSV export.

Independent Windows and Persistent Settings

Three windows are controlled independently:

• Compact Real-Time HUD
• Landing Monitor
• Flare & Rollout Analysis

All windows remain closed when X-Plane or FlyWithLua starts. Monitoring continues in the background.

Display choices, HUD position, custom coordinates, CSV separator and the automatic parking-brake option are saved between sessions.

Automatic CSV Logging

Each completed landing is automatically saved to a per-aircraft CSV file.

Version 1.0.3 uses:

LandingLog_v9_<separator>_<aircraft>.csv

The log includes touchdown data, runway and wind information, flare and pre-flare measurements, score-distance information, Peak-G-based Landing Quality and the final Landing Score.

Requirements

• X-Plane 12
• FlyWithLua NG
• A supported 64-bit operating system
• Write permission in the FlyWithLua Scripts folder

Installation

1. Close X-Plane 12.
2. Copy:

LandingMonitorFlareAnalysis_XP12_v1.0.3.lua

into:

X-Plane 12/Resources/plugins/FlyWithLua/Scripts/

3. Remove or archive previous Landing Monitor Lua versions.
4. Start X-Plane.
5. Open the FlyWithLua menu to access the Landing Monitor windows, settings and commands.

When updating from an older version, the runway cache may be rebuilt automatically. Rebuild the runway database manually after changing scenery_packs.ini or installing a new airport scenery.

What Is New in Version 1.0.3

• New relative FLARE and PRE-FLARE detection
• Filtered joystick-deflection analysis
• Complete approach history retained below approximately 50 ft
• Effective flare-onset refinement using relative slope
• PRE-FLARE measurements and score-distance calculation
• Scenery-priority runway selection
• Version 2 runway cache
• Geographic runway index and limited local candidate search
• Peak-G-based Landing Quality
• Revised Landing Score
• Wind-aware crab-angle tolerance
• Full centerline credit inside ±1 metre
• Simplified filtered-joystick graph
• Script-version labels in all main windows
• Improved parking-brake automatic window opening
• Updated LandingLog_v9 CSV format

Important Notice

Landing Monitor XP12 is a flight-simulation analysis tool. It is not certified avionics and must not be used for real-world flight operations, aircraft maintenance or regulatory compliance.