Hi Cobra!
Like Raptor says. If you are going to play FS online just disable all firewalls and antivirus prg´s.
About the portforwarding. The only answer i can give is that you check your manual for FS. It must be written somewhere in there, which ports the game is using.
Yeah, landings are tricky in the beginning. I often landed too hard, still do sometimes. I just come in on the final too fast and want to force the fighter down on the runway, just to get it over with after a longer flight.
Low level fligts are the most fun, you can almost imagine all the windows that will break when you fly supersonic over at town or city. LOL. I know that some freeware jets comes with the sonicboom effect, always fun to see and hear from the outside view.
I dont have so much time anylonger to fly online as much as i use to do. Usally i just go up alone now, take a "short" flight with the Gripen or whatever fighter im in the mood to fly. I´ll do the Grand Canyon run or make a trip to Mt Everest in a prop just to challenge myself.
The Image shows my last flight. Did a tour over Vietnam, downloaded accurat weather from 1969 ?? ??. It was fun flying, but no MIG´s around.
PS. FSX does not support aircraft from older FS versions. You can use aircraft from FS2004, but strange things happens to them and the flying. Like the lack of canopys, no VR cockpits, no landing gears or they are always shown in the extended position, afterburner dissapears. Aircraft suddenly stalls or there is no stop to how fast you can fly, speed just keeps on increasing if you give it full throttle. I was going almost Mach 10 with an F-111, he he.