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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Hold the nose down until the speed reaches 79 kt, then rotate.
What happened: You started the rotation at 65 kt, 14 kt before the 79 kt rotation speed.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator: 79 kt at rotation
See Departure Roll
Arrival
Add power on final to keep the approach speed at 86 kt rather than letting it decay before the threshold.
What happened: The aircraft crossed the threshold at 66 kt, 20 kt below the target, and touchdown followed with a firm, high sink rate arrival. Crossing the threshold slow like this usually carries through to a firmer touchdown as the flare runs out of energy.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator: 86 kt at the threshold.
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 WorkStart to finish · 16 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 65 kt, 14 kt below the 79 kt target, and lifted off at 77 kt 3.2 s later, the nose coming up at 1.2° 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 dashed green line is the speed to rotate at for this aircraft at its weight, and the green dot is where the nose started to come up. 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 708 ft. The distance scale changes past the runway end.
Reached 35 ft with 479 m of runway left; then climbing at 960 fpm on average to 708 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 1,120 m runway.
Rolled from 45 m in, drifted left of the centreline, 1.9 m at the widest, and lifted off 1.9 m left. Airborne 35 % 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.
Right-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 nm out at 102 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.
High on downwind: 1,463 ft against 1,000 ft, 463 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 WorkGood: full marks on the turn and the leg after it.
Overshot: went 226 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 2° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 1.6 nm, where the final began, 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 3× larger than distances along the final.
Joined 226 m left of the centreline at 1.6 nm, then inside the band from 0.7 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 43 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 26 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Slow from 1.6 nm, where the final began, to the threshold (up to −20 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 269° 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 64 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 13 s, an average deceleration of 0.14 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 1,120 m of the approach.
Began the flare at 25 ft, 200 m before the threshold; crossed the threshold at 3 ft, 47 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 70 m in, 235 m short of 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 1,120 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 620 fpm at the flare to 140 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 3.3° 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 1,120 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 1.9 m left of the centreline, and stayed about there down the rollout, 4.3 m left 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 70 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The Pilatus PC-12 taxied to runway 32 at EGHR Goodwood Aerodrome and departed from that runway. Takeoff used 399 m, 36 % of the runway, and rotation occurred at 65 kt. Local weather was 15 °C with wind 1 kt from 269°, giving a 1 kt headwind and 1 kt crosswind.
Initial climb to 400 ft agl lasted 42 seconds, averaging 973 fpm and reaching 108 kt at the top of the climb.
The right-hand circuit for runway 32 lasted 4 minutes. The downwind leg was 3 nm and was flown in 102 seconds at 1,460 ft agl; the base leg was less than 1 nm and was completed in 34 seconds.
Final approach to runway 32 began from 706 ft agl and descended to 3 ft agl in 80 seconds. At 500 ft above the runway the stabilisation checks were: gear down - met; landing flap - met; sink rate - met; on glideslope - met; on speed - not met.
Landing was on runway 32, whose length is 1,120 m and has a good threshold height. Threshold speed was 66 kt, well below target. The flare was described as perfect. Touchdown occurred 70 m down the runway at 65 kt with a smooth rate of -138 fpm and very good alignment. No bounce was observed. Total landing distance was 369 m, 33 % of the runway, and rollout alignment was very good.
Local weather at landing was 15 °C with wind 1 kt from 270°, giving a 1 kt headwind and 1 kt crosswind.
The entire flight covered 10 nm, lasted 7 minutes and consumed 20 kg of fuel.
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