FSX AI Traffic - Steep Landing Angle

I've got some AI plans for Ryan-Air and Easyjet loaded on my copy of FSX (as I live near to stansted, I do alot my flying into & out of there). I've currently setup the default B737-800 for Ryanair and the Default A321 for easyjet.

One thing I do notice though is that when the A/C make an approach, the descent angle is very steep and they land very hard. Is there any way to correct this?

The AI flight model is VERY VERY simplistic. Short answer- not much.

Longer answer- Don't expect too much from AI.

First of all the AI flight model is primarily governed by a few simplistic settings in the aircraft.cfg file. The rest of the flight model has to conform itself to these settings:

[Reference Speeds]

// Knots True (KTAS)

// Used by AI:

flaps_up_stall_speed

full_flaps_stall_speed

cruise_speed

Next, the AI always takes off at full fuel so expects to fly at maximum range.

A 747 with only a 500 miles flight path will land with nearly full fuel.

Next, The AI being pretty dumb will do whatever it takes to get the plane at cruise and back down on the ground, breaking any rules or passenger satisfaction ratings necessary to do so.

Any overly steep or high pitched landing and approaches are likely due to a mismatch between the current weight of the plane (the AI will not do a fuel dump) the weather conditions, the length of the flight, and incorrect AI settings in the Reference Speeds section. The AI will try to take off with full fuel using full flaps, raise the flaps at Flaps Up Stall, climb parabolically at totally unrealistic rates and attitudes governed by the autopilot max climb rate to the cruise speed, descend parabolically at a fixed distance to the destination regardless of weight, extend flaps at the Flaps Up speed and under direction of the simplistic AI ATC commands, try to land at full flaps at the full flaps stall speed regardless of whether a real airplane could do it without crashing or hundreds of passenger lawsuits.

Summary, to get the AI planes to behave in the "cleanest" profile, always create near max range plans and check the aircraft.cfg file using the best data. Also, there is no user accessible code or SDK modifications for adding intelligence to the AI plane behavior.

If the raw flight model is not very good, the AI will behave even worse. Since most AI aircraft model designers do not expect their AI planes to be flown by humans, the AI often gets trash to work with. You could (if you care enough) convert the AI planes you care about a lot into human flyable planes and using real world information, spend weeks or months fine-tuning the plane while flying it yourself, then convert it back into AI. I don't think the effort is worth it, but this is my opinion based on my personal "couldn't care less how the AI behaves" attitude. If FSX is an airliner fish bowl simulator, then the added time and trouble to refine the AI flight model might be worth it.

-Pv-