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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Ease the nose up sooner to lift off at 70 kt instead of letting speed build on the ground.
What happened: The aircraft lifted off at 87 kt, 17 kt above the target liftoff speed.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator: 70 kt at liftoff
See Departure Roll
A typical trainer rotates in the mid-50s of knots - a 172 at around 55 KIAS, climbing out at a Vy in the low 70s, though check your own POH rather than memorising Cessna's numbers - and the transferable rule is that Vr sits just above the stall speed in takeoff configuration. Rotate early because "it felt ready" and the aircraft lifts off inside ground effect, where induced drag is reduced, then climbs out of it into more drag. On a marginal-performance day the result is an aircraft that lifts off and then refuses to climb, sagging back towards the runway.
Read more in Improve Your Take-OffsStart to finish · 16 stages, 15 in the score
Events
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From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Lifted off at 87 kt with 0.2° of pitch.
Two traces from brake release: the airspeed on top, and below it the pitch, which is how far the nose is above the horizon. The figure at liftoff is the pitch then.
The takeoff, point by point
Side view from the start of the roll to 502 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 631 m of runway left; then climbing at 540 fpm on average to 502 ft.
The takeoff from the side: the height above the runway against the distance along it. The numbers along the runway are the speeds reached at each point. Lifting off in the amber last quarter of the runway costs marks for the roll length.
Plan view the roll down the 1,814 m runway.
Rolled from 65 m in, drifted 2.7 m right of the centreline and was back on it to lift off. Airborne 11 % of the way down the runway, before the 75 % line.
The roll from above, with your left at the top. The line is where the wheels went, and "widest" is the furthest you drifted off the centreline. Lifting off before the amber 75 % line gets full marks for the roll length.
Left-hand, 1,000 ft circuit height. The plan shows your circuit over a textbook one for this runway; the profile unrolls the same path from liftoff to the threshold.
Plan landing direction to the left; in pale blue the textbook circuit for your downwind speed, 0.9 nm out at 85 kt
The lap from above, with the landing direction to the left: the opposite of the runway drawings. The wide pale-blue line is a textbook circuit for your downwind speed - the downwind a mile out for every 100 kt, every turn at 30° of bank - and your track is drawn over it, each leg in the colour of its mark. The numbers are the four turns, the same as on the profile and the cards below. The 45° line from the threshold is the usual point to turn onto base.
Around the circuit height and bank; the turns are shaded
The same lap straightened out, so the height and the bank can be read together. Each shaded stretch is a turn, numbered as on the plan. The green box is circuit height, 1,000 ft, on the downwind. The amber line is 30° of bank, and a turn's steepest bank shows red above 32°. "Turn crosswind from" is the lowest height to start the first turn at.
Good: full marks on the turn and the leg after it.
Low on downwind: 836 ft against 1,000 ft, 164 ft below.
Descending on downwind. Power comes back abeam, the aircraft isn't re-trimmed, your eyes are outside judging the turn point, and 100 ft leaks away before base. Shows up as a low gate 2, and everything after it is a scramble.
Read more in Pattern WorkEarly: turned base with the threshold 56° behind, against 45°.
Base. Turn 90 degrees towards the runway when the threshold sits about 45 degrees behind your shoulder. Descend at around 80 kt with second-stage flap. The geometry of that 45-degree cue isn't arbitrary. It produces a base leg long enough to lose roughly 500 ft at about 500 fpm before the final turn. Once you know that's what the cue is for, you can derive your own turn point for any aircraft and any speed.
Read more in Pattern WorkGood: full marks on the turn.
The final from 4 nm.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 2° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 0.8 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 50 ft below the slope.
Your height above the runway against the distance still to go. The glideslope is the steady descent path to the aiming point, 305 m past the threshold: 3° here, which is about 320 ft for every nautical mile out, crossing the threshold at about 50 ft. The row under the distances is the height it puts you at. Inside the green band your path is drawn green; outside it, amber.
Plan distance off the extended centreline, your left at the top, with the 1° band. Sideways distances are drawn 3× larger than distances along the final.
Inside the 1° band all the way from 0.8 nm, never more than 146 m off the centreline.
Looking down from above, flying left to right towards the runway: up the page is left of the centreline, down is right. Sideways distances are stretched so that small drifts show, so a line that looks wild here may be only a few tens of feet. The labels are how far off you were at each distance, amber when outside the band.
Speed against the approach speed. The green band runs from 5 kt slow to 39 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 23 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Inside the speed band all the way, between −2 kt and +4 kt on the approach speed of 78 kt.
Your indicated airspeed down the final, against the approach speed for this aircraft at its landing weight. The band allows 5 kt slow and more on the fast side further out, closing as you get lower, because the speed is expected to come off on the way down. The figures are knots above (+) or below (−) the approach speed.
Over the threshold
Touchdown
Perfect landing flare
No crosswind: nothing to correct for. Touched down straight, wings level.
Wind 270° at 1 kt · 1 kt head · 0 kt across
The wind is the one recorded at the landing, split along the runway (headwind or tailwind) and across it. To hold the centreline in a crosswind the nose points a little into wind - the crab - and is straightened with rudder just before the wheels touch, often with the into-wind wing lowered to stop the drift. These are the nose against the direction you were actually moving, and the wings, at the moment of touchdown. Shown for reading; not marked.
From 57 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 17 s, an average deceleration of 0.11 g.
Your ground speed from the moment the wheels touched until you were down to taxi speed, against the distance rolled. A steep line is hard braking, a shallow one a long, gentle roll. For scale, an airliner's lowest autobrake setting decelerates at about 0.15 g, a medium one about 0.3 g. Shown for reading; not marked.
Side view — the last 1,524 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 30 ft, 20 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 342 m in, close to the ideal 305 m.
The last stretch of the approach and the touchdown, from the side. The height is stretched so that the last few feet show: 80 ft top to bottom, against 1,524 m across. The dashed line is the ideal, 50 ft over the threshold and down 305 m in. The flare ring is where you began raising the nose, and "descent slowed" is where the sink came off; the figures beside them are the sink rate, pitch and speed at that point.
Sink and pitch — through the flare, lined up with the side view.
The sink went from 790 fpm at 31 ft to 130 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 6.1° on the way down.
Lined up with the side view above, so a point on one sits under the same point of the other. On top, how fast you were coming down: 0 is level, and −600 is 600 ft a minute down. Below, the pitch. In a flare the nose comes up and the descent slows towards 0. The figure at the touchdown line is your touchdown rate.
Plan view — the first 1,524 m of the 1,814 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 2.4 m right of the centreline, and stayed within 2.5 m of it down the rollout.
The runway from above, with your left at the top. Touching down inside the green bracket scores full marks for the distance. The shaded part is the rollout, up to where it ended.
The 342 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The flight began with a quick taxi from the parking area to the runway, taking less than a minute and covering a distance of less than a nautical mile. The aircraft, a PA28 Arrow III, then departed from runway 23 at EGPE Inverness Airport, with a takeoff distance of 798 meters, which accounted for 44% of the runway. The liftoff speed was 87 knots, and the local weather conditions were characterized by a temperature of 16 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 1 knot from 270 degrees, resulting in a negligible crosswind and headwind.
As the aircraft entered the left-hand pattern from runway 23, it covered a distance of less than a nautical mile in just 18 seconds. The subsequent left-hand pattern crosswind leg was completed in 20 seconds, with the aircraft maintaining a steady course. The pattern downwind turn was executed at an angle of 54.3 degrees to the runway, covering a distance of 1 nautical mile. The downwind leg itself was 2 nautical miles long and took 79 seconds to complete.
The pattern base leg turn was made at an angle of 56.3 degrees to the runway, covering a distance of 1 nautical mile. The base leg itself was less than a nautical mile long and took 32 seconds to complete. The final turn was made in less than a nautical mile in 24 seconds, setting the aircraft up for a final approach to runway 23 from the north-east, heading 229.0 degrees at an altitude of 175 feet above ground level.
The landing on runway 23 was successful, with a threshold height that was good and a threshold speed that was slightly above the target at 76 knots. The touchdown distance was 340 meters, and the touchdown speed was 58 knots, both of which were good. The touchdown rate was smooth at -108 feet per minute, and the runway touchdown alignment was very good. The local weather conditions remained the same, with a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 1 knot from 270 degrees.
The total landing distance was 704 meters, which accounted for 39% of the runway. The runway rollout alignment was perfect, indicating a smooth and controlled descent. The total flight distance was 7 nautical miles, and the flight took 5 minutes to complete, using 2 kilograms of fuel in the process.
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