Events
Events
Events
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Apply small rudder corrections to track the centreline against a point at the far end of the runway.
What happened: The takeoff roll drifted 12 m off the centreline, and a heading variation of -4.8° usually follows into the initial climb.
Watch for: Heading indicator: wings-level runway heading held through the climb
Arrival
Reduce power earlier on final so threshold speed decays to 76 kt, instead of carrying the excess energy into the flare.
What happened: This flight crossed the threshold 18 kt fast at 94 kt, then the flare was pumped with the pitch reversing direction several times instead of one smooth input. Crossing the threshold fast like this usually feeds into a pumped flare and a bounced touchdown.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator: 76 kt at the threshold.
Fast at the threshold, normal flare, and the runway seems to refuse the aircraft. The instinctive fix - pushing it on - causes the next one. A fast aircraft forced onto the runway touches nosewheel-first or nearly so. The tell is a touchdown that feels soft followed by a bounce that steepens. Pilots fix the bounce recovery; the cause was the 10 knots at the threshold.
Read more in VRef ExplainedStart to finish · 15 stages, 13 in the score
Events
Events
Events
From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Lifted off at 64 kt with 6.2° 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 688 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 552 m of runway left; then climbing at 1,180 fpm on average to 688 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 1,224 m runway.
Rolled from 87 m in, drifted right of the centreline, 12 m at the widest, and lifted off 36 m left, in 9 kn of crosswind from the right. Airborne 40 % 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 arrow beside the runway is the crosswind, pointing the way the air was moving, so it pushed the aircraft that way.
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, 1.2 nm out at 121 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: 787 ft against 1,000 ft, 213 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 WorkSteep: 42° of bank.
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 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 0.9 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 200 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 3× larger than distances along the final.
Joined 265 m left of the centreline at 0.9 nm, then inside it from 0.6 to 0.2 nm, then 25 m left of it from 0.2 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.
Speed against the approach speed. The green band runs from 5 kt slow to 38 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 23 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Fast from 0.9 nm, where the final began, to the threshold (up to +38 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
The flare strayed well off the target profile. The flare was pumped rather than held: pitch changed direction 4 times on the way down. Touchdown was 390 m past the threshold. One smooth continuous input - chasing the runway with the elevator makes the next correction bigger, not smaller.
8 kt across from the right, which takes about 6° of crab to hold the centreline at 79 kt. Touched down with the nose 9° left of the track, away from the wind, wings level.
Wind 256° at 9 kt · 2 kt head · 8 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.
Side view — the last 1,224 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 37 ft, 13 ft below the 50 ft target; began the flare at 39 ft; ballooned 5 ft from 11 ft. Touched down 390 m in, 85 m past 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 1,224 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.
From the flare the descent stopped and turned into a climb of 180 fpm before coming down at 440 fpm to touch. The nose went down 3.6° 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 full 1,224 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 18 m right of the centreline, and stayed about there down the rollout, 11 m right at the widest.
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 arrow beside the runway is the crosswind, pointing the way the air was moving, so it pushed the aircraft that way.
The 390 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The 1.69 G arrival bounced 6 times.
The rest of the report
Departing from Reichelsheim Airfield (EDFB), the Extra 330 aircraft began its takeoff roll on runway 18, accelerating to a liftoff speed of 65 kt in a distance of 357 meters, which accounted for 29% of the available runway length. The local weather conditions at the time were characterized by a temperature of 22 °C and a wind speed of 10 kt from 255°, resulting in a crosswind component of 9 kt and a headwind component of 2 kt.
As the aircraft entered the traffic pattern, it proceeded to complete a left-hand pattern entry from runway 18, requiring less than 1 nm in 11 seconds to establish a stable approach configuration. The subsequent left-hand pattern crosswind leg was completed in 24 seconds, with the aircraft maintaining a steady heading and airspeed. The pattern downwind turn, base leg turn, and final turn were all executed with precision, with the aircraft maintaining a consistent angle to the runway of approximately 45 degrees. The final approach to runway 18 was initiated from the north, with the aircraft descending to an altitude of 264 ft agl at a heading of 177.0°.
The landing on runway 18 was characterized by a touchdown point that was significantly long, utilizing more than 50% of the available runway length. The touchdown speed of 79 kt was higher than optimal, and the touchdown rate of -412 fpm was hard. Furthermore, the runway touchdown position was misaligned by 26.0 meters from the centerline. The total landing distance of 1,059 meters accounted for 86% of the available runway length, and the runway rollout alignment was also misaligned by 18.5 meters from the centerline. The total flight distance was 9 nm, with a total flight time of 5 minutes and a fuel consumption of 3 kg.
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