Night Flying

I got home from work today and it was dark and rainy, perfect flying weather! OK, I know I can turn the rain on and off in FSX any time I want to, but there's something appealing about flying in "real" weather. I guess the rain in the simulator and the rain outside the window of my office just work together somehow.

I fired up the simulator and did a couple of pattern flights (take off, fly the pattern, land), just around the Dalton airport. It wasn't actually raining during the first flight, but it started pretty good by the second. Here are some screenshots - including some improved external views since I learned you can pause the sim, then change views, grab the shot, switch back to cockpit view, and resume flying:

As usually, coming in too high.

Too high? Really? From tower view it looks like I'm about to clip those trees.

Looking better. Red-over-white and clear of the trees. Hard to see the rain at this resolution.

Over the runway with landing lights on. Notice that the wind is pushing me off to the right so I've angled the plane to try to stay off the grass when I land.

Flair before landing (pulling the nose up so I touch down on the rear wheels only and at lower vertical speed.

Touchdown! Notice the puffs of smoke coming off the rear wheels and that my nose wheel is still off the ground. You can also see the rain better in this shot.

Well, enough fun for one night. Oh, and these are higher-resolution images than before. Right click and select "open in new tab" and you'll see the full sized version. Much easier to make out detail that way. Oh, and these two flights make my third and fourth successful landings with medium realism and crash-detection turned on. Woo Hoo!