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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Arrival
Close the throttles further on final so you cross the threshold at 125 kt, removing the excess energy before the flare.
What happened: The aircraft crossed the threshold at 140 kt, 15 kt above the 125 kt target, and the flare was not begun until 6.1 ft, well inside the normal flare band. Carrying excess speed that late into the approach usually leaves the flare started late and the touchdown arriving firm.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator: 125 kt at the threshold
Arrive slow and the sink rate at the threshold is already above schedule, the flare is short because there is no energy to extend it, and the touchdown is hard in a way that feels exactly like a late flare. Diagnosing a slow arrival as a late flare is the catastrophic misread: you respond by flaring earlier, which bleeds more speed, which makes the next one worse. The tiebreaker is threshold speed against VRef, not feel. Never diagnose a flare without it.
Read more in Flare TimingStart to finish · 14 stages, 13 in the score
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From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Rotated at 149 kt, and lifted off at 155 kt 1.4 s later, the nose coming up at 2.4° a second.
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 figures at liftoff are the pitch then and how fast the nose came up, in degrees a second.
The takeoff, point by point
Side view from the start of the roll to 880 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 2,631 m of runway left; then climbing at 2,550 fpm on average to 880 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 3,671 m runway.
Rolled from 45 m in, drifted 2.3 m left of the centreline and was back on it to lift off. Airborne 21 % 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.
The threshold, the flare and the hold-off. The approach that led to it is the stabilisation gates below.
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, 1.7 nm out at 174 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.
Off heading: 7° from the leg's heading on average.
Each lap slightly wider and higher than the last, because you're unconsciously using the previous lap as your reference instead of the runway and the numbers. Invisible lap to lap, unmistakable across ten. This is the failure that only measurement catches, because your memory of lap three is gone by lap eight.
Read more in Pattern WorkHigh on downwind: 1,484 ft against 1,000 ft, 484 ft above.
Downwind. Parallel to the runway, opposite the landing direction, at pattern altitude and roughly 90 kt. The single most important moment of the entire circuit is the point abeam your intended touchdown point. Power back (around 1,700 RPM in a 172 works as a starting value to calibrate), first stage of flap, pre-landing flow, and re-trim. Everything from abeam to touchdown is one continuous energy problem. Arrive at the abeam point high or fast and you'll pay for it ninety seconds later in the flare, which is why analysing only the touchdown so often misdiagnoses the fault.
Read more in Pattern WorkOff heading: 12° from the leg's heading on average.
Bank angle in the pattern is conventionally kept to 20 to 30 degrees, and the base-to-final turn is where that convention earns its keep. Stall speed rises with bank because the wing must produce more lift in a turn. Roughly 7 per cent higher at 30 degrees, about 19 per cent at 45, and around 40 per cent at 60. At 65 kt on base you don't have much margin to spend steepening a turn to salvage an overshoot.
Read more in Pattern WorkOvershot: went 341 m through the centreline turning final.
Overshooting final. A tailwind component on base sweeps you through the extended centreline, the instinctive correction is to steepen the bank and, when that's not enough, to skid the turn with rudder. In a real aircraft this is the base-to-final stall-spin scenario that kills people. The sim under-punishes it, because a spring yoke transmits no lightening of control force, there's no buffet through your hands, and no seat-of-the-pants sensation of the skid. You get the numbers of the skidded turn without the feel of it. The correct response is the same in both worlds and needs practising until it's reflexive. Don't steepen past 30 degrees, and if you've blown through the centreline, go around and reset.
Read more in Pattern WorkThe final from 4 nm.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 1° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 4 nm to the threshold, never more than 160 ft above 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 7× larger than distances along the final.
Inside the 1° band from 4 nm to 0.4 nm, then 20 m left of it from 0.4 nm to the threshold.
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.
The rest of the report
The Airbus A350-900 departed from runway 23L at NZAA Auckland International Airport. Takeoff used 792 m of runway, 22 % of the available length, and rotation was achieved at 149 kt. Local weather at departure was 19 °C with wind 27 kt from 280°, giving a crosswind component of 13 kt and a headwind component of 23 kt.
Initial climb to 400 ft agl lasted 19 seconds, averaging 2,133 fpm and reaching 205 kt at the top of the climb. The aircraft then entered a left-hand circuit for runway 23L. The downwind leg was 8 nm and was flown in 134 seconds at 1,480 ft agl; the base leg was 1 nm and was completed in 23 seconds.
During final approach to runway 23L, descent was from 1,483 ft agl to 85 ft agl in 111 seconds. Stabilisation checks at 1,000 ft and 500 ft above the runway were all met: gear down, landing flap, sink rate, glideslope, centreline, speed, and wings level. The aircraft was in final flap position 4 at 828 ft agl with a speed of 144 kt.
Landing was made on runway 23L, which is 3,671 m long, with a good threshold height. Threshold speed was well above target at 141 kt. The flare was poor, starting late. Touchdown occurred 144 m beyond the touchdown zone at a speed of 136 kt, which was fast, and the rate of descent was firm at minus 374 fpm. The touchdown point was slightly misaligned, 7.1 m off the centreline. No bounce was observed. Local weather at landing was 18 °C with wind 24 kt from 280°, giving a crosswind component of 12 kt and a headwind component of 21 kt.
The total flight covered 20 nm, lasted 8 minutes, and consumed 1,286 kg of fuel.
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