You and me both! Whether the long, sweeping curve of a WWII fighter like a Bearcat or Corsair, or the straight in (hopefully!) of an F/A-18 or F-14, it all happens too fast for me to switch to an outside view at the last second to look for smoke. By the same token, too much smoke, and I get waaaaaay behind the plane. Legal in Oregon, but hard on reflexes hehehe
I did look at all my carrier capable planes, which took a while may I add, and in all the aircraft.cfg's there were entries similar to this one: touchdown = fx_tchdwn_s, 1 under the [effects] heading. Tells me they all have some sort of touchdown smoke, to a greater or lesser extent. I'm thinking that maybe the gear positions in the [contact points] may be off slightly, hiding the smoke in some cases? Or perhaps the gear position is such that the effect never triggers? Or maybe the landing is too gentle to trigger the effect? I'm just throwing possibilities out to see what MIGHT be causing you to not see smoke on touchdown.
I've found that the touchdown effects by NickN are usually much better than the default touchdown effect, but you have to add them to each plane you desire them to be in individually.
Again, though, I am normally WAY too busy to bother with tire smoke effects. Just getting a 2 or 3 wire trap makes me happy, whatever those hateful vLSO guys might say about me. AND they do!
Have good landings, however much smoke you get
Pat☺