Events
Events
Events
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 · 13 stages, 11 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 46 kt with 6.5° 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 50 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 1,065 m of runway left.
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 1,248 m runway.
Rolled from the start of the runway, drifted left of the centreline, 13 m at the widest, and lifted off 13 m left. Airborne 10 % 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.
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 nm out at 99 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.
Off heading: 9° from the leg's heading on average.
Each lap slightly wider and higher than the last, because you're unconsciously using the previous lap as your reference instead of the runway and the numbers. Invisible lap to lap, unmistakable across ten. This is the failure that only measurement catches, because your memory of lap three is gone by lap eight.
Read more in Pattern WorkOff heading: 12° from the leg's heading on average.
Spacing cues are relative to your eyepoint, so two simmers with different FOV settings following the same wingtip cue fly patterns half a mile different in width, and a wide FOV compresses depth so the runway on base looks further away than it is, biasing you towards a late turn. Pick a camera position and FOV, save it, and never change it, because every judgement you calibrate is calibrated to that picture.
Read more in Pattern WorkSteep: 50° 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 WorkThe final from 4 nm.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 2° band in green.
High from 0.9 nm, where the final began, to the threshold (up to 340 ft over).
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 282 m right of the centreline at 0.9 nm, then 40 m left of it from 0.4 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 78 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 48 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Fast from 0.9 nm, where the final began, to the threshold (up to +54 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
No crosswind: nothing to correct for. Touched down straight, 3° of bank.
Wind 273° at 8 kt · 8 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 84 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 8 s, an average deceleration of 0.36 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 1,248 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 69 ft, 19 ft above the 50 ft target. Touched down 536 m in, 232 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 1,248 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 67 ft the descent stopped and turned into a climb of 120 fpm before coming down at 170 fpm to touch. The nose came up 5.9° 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 full 1,248 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 13 m left of the centreline, and stayed about there down the rollout, 9.1 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 536 m past the threshold — beyond the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The flight was conducted in a FlightDesign CT aircraft, departing from runway 07 at F62 Hayfork. The takeoff distance was 148 meters, which accounted for 12% of the runway length. The liftoff speed was 46 knots, indicating a relatively smooth and controlled takeoff.
As the aircraft entered the traffic pattern, it followed a left-hand pattern entry from runway 07. The distance covered during this phase was less than 1 nautical mile in 62 seconds. The subsequent left-hand pattern crosswind leg was completed in under 1 nautical mile in 20 seconds, showcasing the aircraft's agility and responsiveness.
The pattern downwind turn was executed with a distance of 1 nautical mile and an angle to the runway of 47.3 degrees. The downwind leg itself covered a distance of 2 nautical miles in 75 seconds. The base leg turn was completed in 1 nautical mile with an angle to the runway of 4.6 degrees.
The final approach to runway 07 was initiated from the west, with a heading of 83.0 degrees at an altitude of 342 feet above ground level (agl) and 0 nautical miles from the runway. However, the landing was not entirely successful, as the threshold height at 70 feet agl was above the target, and the threshold speed was excessively high at 97 knots.
The touchdown point was 106 meters beyond the touchdown zone, and the touchdown speed was 76 knots, which was also excessively fast. The touchdown rate was good at -172 feet per minute (fpm), but the runway touchdown position was misaligned by 13.2 meters from the centerline. The local weather conditions during landing were characterized by a temperature of 7 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 8 knots at 272 degrees, with a crosswind of 1 knot and a tailwind of 8 knots.
The total landing distance was 707 meters, accounting for 57% of the runway length. The runway rollout alignment was slightly misaligned by 13.1 meters from the centerline. Notably, the total flight distance was 4 nautical miles, and the flight used 0 kilograms of fuel.
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