The "LandMaster System" consists of
- LandMaster Scoreboard
- LandMaster Landing Gate
- LandMaster Landing Analyzer
The "Gate" and "Analyzer" can be installed with a HUD.
The system is available on the Marketplace, while the installation HUD is free, the Scoreboard is ~ 250L$.
The system can be run without the Scoreboard.
"LandMaster System" scores the touchdowns of planes in SL. A plane which has hit the "Gate" and afterwards hits the "Landing Analyzer" is recognzied and a score from 0 to 100 is calculated and given.
In the package there is a "Score Range" list. To summarize: Scores above 70% have to be assumed as "good" (comparable to school grade "C" (U.S.) or "Befriedigend" (Germany)).
The LandMaster System is no "absolute indicator" for the skills of a pilot. At least three individual factors determine the scores (in addition to the internal algorithms):
- Type of plane and grade of flight physic's realism: Some old and/or cheap planes rather work like a "toy", cannot taxi e.g. or are able to fly backwards. They don't react on gear position or flaps - if the have them at all. Other well done or newer planes are very complicated to steer and react rather than real life planes.
- Specific local configuration of the system (see pictures in the gallery): the standard configuration suggested by the building HUD normally covers the whole runway. This can lead to very good results, even though the touchdown point is somewhere at the end of the runway - which would not be realistic IRL. Therefor a few airports have configurations with a shorter landing analyzer (ground sensor) to force the pilots to hit the touchdown point if they want their score being counted. Also, some have a gap between gate and ground sensor. And there have also been variations with a low gate (vertical sensor) to force a flat approach.
- Last not least: actual planes like the D-207 by Dani for example have 3 "weight modes". Other Dani planes (D-121, D-690, D-Naly, D-50) additonally have 3 "speed modes". In example number one (D-207) the landing score massively depends on the selected weight - the heavier the plane is, the earlier it is in stall conditions - the three modes create totally different glide paths. This has to be kept in mind when looking at a scoreboard. For all these planes (also by other creators like DSA or ZSK and so on) it's important to know that the intended flap behaviour (built in by the creators) varies from type to type, so that "full flaps" may be rated down by the LandMaster, because the sink rate is too high for the system. So training on every single plane is required to get best scores - which sometimes may lead to apparent bad touchdowns as a result of the "workarounds". Nevertheless such a weird landing may be rated very high.
The conclusion has to be that scores made on different airports and even for the same type on a specific airport aren't 1:1 comparable. Nevertheless competition is fun and many pilots love the LandMaster System as a very entertaining extension.
FAQ:
In some cases planes are not recognized by the "gate". Of course this may happen if the plane comes in in a way that it does not even touch the gate :-) More common could be that
- Touchdown occurs within 30 seconds after hitting the gate for takeoff (very quick return). In such cases the Landmaster cannot understand the flight as a closed process.
- Gate is mounted directly at a sim border. Depending on the crossing time of a plane it may happen that the plane is not recognized. It normally helps to either move the gate away from the sim border OR just make it thicker, we recommend 5 metres. This gives the gate more time to really recognize the plane passing by.
More hints to follow...
