Events
Events
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Know your rotation speed
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 · 15 stages, 14 in the score
Events
Events
From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Lifted off at 66 kt with 2.7° 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 505 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 350 m of runway left; then climbing at 1,620 fpm on average to 505 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 755 m runway.
Rolled from 81 m in, never more than 1.4 m off the centreline. Airborne 37 % 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.
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, 0.9 nm out at 90 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.
Turn onto downwind: scored 43.
The 45-degrees-behind-the-wing cue assumes you can turn your head and use peripheral vision. Downwind spacing cues like "put the wingtip halfway up the strut" assume a fixed, known eyepoint. Neither survives a monitor unmodified. If you fly on a fixed monitor, stop pretending and fly a numbers-based circuit.
Read more in Pattern WorkGood: full marks on the turn and the leg after it.
Good: full marks on the turn.
Over the threshold
Touchdown
No crosswind: nothing to correct for. Touched down with the nose 2° left of the track, wings level.
Wind 270° at 1 kt · 0 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 38 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 10 s, an average deceleration of 0.04 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 755 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 20 ft, 30 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 213 m in, 92 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 755 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 460 fpm at 20 ft to 10 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 7.4° 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 755 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down on the centreline, and stayed within 0.9 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 213 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
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