Events
Events
Events
Events
Events
Events
Events
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Improve the pattern downwind leg
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 WorkStart to finish · 16 stages, 15 in the score
Events
Events
Events
Events
Events
Events
Events
From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Lifted off at 119 kt with 4.0° 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 253 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 1,508 m of runway left; then climbing at 810 fpm on average to 253 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 2,737 m runway.
Rolled from 36 m in, drifted right of the centreline, 2 m at the widest, and lifted off 2 m right. Airborne 33 % 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.
One stabilised approach gate for a circuit: seven checks where the approach path is 500 ft above the runway. The 1,000 ft gate is an instrument-approach check and does not apply.
When the approach was stable
Every check met from 3.4 nm, about 940 ft above the runway, to the threshold, before the 500 ft gate. The last to settle was the wings.
Each line is one of the gate checks, run along the whole final rather than only at the gates: green where it would have passed, amber where it would not. The glideslope, centreline and speed lines use the bands in the charts beside this card. The sink rate is allowed what the glideslope needs at your ground speed plus 600 fpm, the wings 10° of bank, and the gear and flap are read from when you moved the levers. The bottom line is green where every check held at once, ignoring blips shorter than 0.2 nm, and the sentence above it says from where it held to the threshold. A ring is a stabilisation gate, where the checks in the table were taken.
The final from 4 nm, with the stabilisation gates on it.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 1° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 3.9 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 330 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. A ring is a stabilisation gate: green when every check there passed, amber with the failed checks named beside it.
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 3.9 nm, never more than 373 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 25 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 15 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Inside the speed band all the way, between −3 kt and +9 kt on the approach speed of 100 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
Fair landing flare
No crosswind: nothing to correct for. Touched down with the nose 1° right of the track, wings level.
Wind 270° at 1 kt · 1 kt tail · 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 75 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 14 s, an average deceleration of 0.18 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 41 ft, close to the 50 ft target. Touched down 716 m in, 411 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 1,524 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 650 fpm at 42 ft to 120 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 6.9° 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 2,737 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 3.7 m left of the centreline, and stayed about there down the rollout, 3.8 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.
Touched down 716 m past the threshold — beyond the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The flight was conducted in a Beechcraft King Air 350 aircraft. Taxiing from the parking area to the runway took less than a minute and covered a distance of less than one nautical mile. The departure roll took place on runway 30 at EGPK Glasgow Prestwick Airport, with a takeoff distance of 912 meters, which is 33% of the runway length. The liftoff speed was 119 knots.
The local weather conditions at the time of takeoff were characterized by a temperature of 17 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 1 knot from a direction of 269 degrees. This resulted in a negligible crosswind and headwind component. After takeoff, the aircraft entered a left-hand pattern, which involved a turn from runway 30. The distance covered during this turn was less than one nautical mile and took 126 seconds to complete.
As the aircraft continued in the left-hand pattern, it encountered a crosswind from runway 30, which was also less than one nautical mile in distance and took only 27 seconds to navigate. The pattern then involved a downwind turn, which covered a distance of four nautical miles and had an angle to the runway of 45 degrees and a descent angle of 2.6 degrees. The downwind leg itself was short, covering less than one nautical mile in just six seconds.
The final approach to runway 12 at EGPK Glasgow Prestwick Airport was made from the north-west, with a heading of 120 degrees and an altitude of 958 feet above ground level. The landing on runway 12 was successful, with a threshold height that was considered good and a threshold speed of 97 knots. The touchdown point was 282 meters beyond the touchdown zone, with a touchdown speed of 72 knots and an excellent touchdown rate of -84 feet per minute.
The runway touchdown position was slightly misaligned from the centerline by 3.8 meters. The local weather conditions at the time of landing were characterized by a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 1 knot from a direction of 270 degrees, resulting in a negligible crosswind and tailwind component. The total landing distance was 987 meters, which is 36% of the runway length. The runway rollout alignment was very good.
The total flight distance was nine nautical miles, which was covered in seven minutes. The aircraft used a total of five kilograms of fuel during the flight.
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