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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Shorten the long landing
Ground effect becomes significant below about one wingspan of height. A Cessna 172, with a 36 ft span, enters ground effect at flare height - the float it feels in the hold-off is ground effect arriving on cue. An A320, with a span around 117 ft, has been in ground effect since before the threshold and there is no sudden cushion to feel, only a gradual reduction in induced drag that lengthens any float you allow.
Read more in Flare TimingStart to finish · 16 stages, 15 in the score
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From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Lifted off at 66 kt with 1.8° 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 210 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 412 m of runway left; then climbing at 740 fpm on average to 210 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 1,037 m runway.
Rolled from 43 m in, drifted left of the centreline, 8.8 m at the widest, and lifted off 8.9 m left. 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.
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, 0.8 nm out at 79 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.
Early: turned crosswind at 272 ft. US guidance is within 300 ft of circuit height, 700 ft here, so the climb ends on downwind.
Crosswind. Turn 90 degrees when you're within about 300 ft of pattern altitude, which at a standard field means roughly 700 ft AGL, or two-thirds of the way up. That rule exists for a reason worth knowing. It means you finish the climb and level off on downwind, wings level, rather than trying to capture an altitude mid-turn. If you turn crosswind at pattern altitude instead, you arrive on downwind still cleaning up, and the abeam point catches you unconfigured.
Read more in Pattern WorkLow on downwind: 752 ft against 1,000 ft, 248 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: 37° 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.
Over the threshold
Touchdown
No wind recorded: nothing to correct for. Touched down with the nose 3° right of the track, wings level.
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 50 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 13 s, an average deceleration of 0.08 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 1,037 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 20 ft, 30 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 653 m in, 348 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 1,037 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 20 ft the descent stopped and turned into a climb of 130 fpm before coming down at 140 fpm to touch. 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 1,037 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 40 m left of the centreline, and steered back to 15 m left by the end of 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.
Touched down 653 m past the threshold — beyond the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
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