We are looking down runway ‘36’ of Meigs Field Airport, in Chicago, USA. The aircraft here is a Cessna C172SP Skyhawk, an excellent single-engine general aviation aircraft. We can get a better sense of the city of Chicago, and Lake Michigan on the eastern side of the runway. The cockpit instruments look very realistic. The engine is running, and the sound of the engine is very realistic, and characteristic of this particular aircraft.

The 6 main instruments mounted in the one panel (and shown here) are the primary flight instruments. Most general and commercial aviation aircraft instrument panels will have these primary flight instruments arranged in a similar layout.

Excellent detail and views out of all of the windows.

The large building is the one shown with the two tall aerials on top of the roof.

The afternoon sun reflects warmly off the Great Lake.

I have reduced my air speed to about 80 knots and extended the wing flaps (which slow the aircraft a little, but more importantly make the wings less prone to stalling at slower air speeds). The alignment to the runway is good.

We are nicely aligned with the runway, but note that the bright ‘PAPI display’ near the start of the runway shows 4 white lights. This indicates that we are coming in at too high an angle on our approach to land. We need to lose more height as we come in, to hopefully get to a point where we see two red lights and 2 white lights (which indicates an ideal landing path angle of 3 degrees from the landing spot). The lights will change from white to red one at a time if we lose enough height.

We have lost enough altitude and adjusted our angle of descent, and the bright PAPI lights display near the start of the runway now shows two red lights and two white lights – now on a perfect angle coming in for the landing! I now just need to keep an eye on my air speed (not to let it get too low) and watch out for any sailing boats with tall masts as I go in.

I am aligned well with the runway, and the PAPI lights are saying that I have still got the correct descent angle.

The engine has been closed right down. The wheels have touched down and are now rolling quickly. I am about to apply the wheel brakes to slow the aircraft down further. All down smoothly!