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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Smooth the climb
A good takeoff has a defined shape. It also has a defined end. For an airliner that's thrust reduction and acceleration, commonly somewhere around 1,000 to 1,500 ft above the airfield depending on the operator, while for a light aircraft it's established at Vy with the flaps on schedule. Most simmers have no defined end to their takeoff, which is exactly why it never gets judged.
Read more in Improve Your Take-OffsStart to finish · 15 stages, 14 in the score
Events
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From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Lifted off at 63 kt with 2.8° 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 203 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 204 m of runway left; then climbing at 590 fpm on average to 203 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 685 m runway.
Rolled from 202 m in, drifted left of the centreline, 2.4 m at the widest, and lifted off 2.4 m left. Airborne 39 % 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 86 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 79.
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 WorkEarly: turned base with the threshold 59° behind, against 45°.
Base. Turn 90 degrees towards the runway when the threshold sits about 45 degrees behind your shoulder. Descend at around 80 kt with second-stage flap. The geometry of that 45-degree cue isn't arbitrary. It produces a base leg long enough to lose roughly 500 ft at about 500 fpm before the final turn. Once you know that's what the cue is for, you can derive your own turn point for any aircraft and any speed.
Read more in Pattern WorkGood: full marks on the turn.
The final from 4 nm.
Profile height against the 4° glideslope, with its 2° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 0.9 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 70 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: 4° here, which is about 420 ft for every nautical mile out, crossing the threshold at about 70 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 4× larger than distances along the final.
Joined 28 m left of the centreline at 0.9 nm, then inside the band from 0.6 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.
Inside the speed band all the way, between −2 kt and +3 kt on the approach speed of 65 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 with the nose 1° left of the track, wings level.
Wind 249° at 3 kt · 2 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 49 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 9 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 685 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 8 ft, 42 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 203 m in, 102 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 685 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 180 fpm at 8 ft to 80 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 2.8° 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 685 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down on the centreline, and stayed within 1 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 203 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The flight began with a departure roll from runway 30 at EGHJ Bembridge Airport, where the aircraft, a PA28 Warrior II, accelerated down the runway and lifted off at a speed of 63 kt. The takeoff distance was 94 m, which accounted for 14% of the runway length. The local weather conditions at the time of takeoff were characterized by a temperature of 15 °C and a wind speed of 3 kt from a direction of 249 °, resulting in a crosswind of 2 kt and a headwind of 2 kt.
As the aircraft entered the traffic pattern, it followed a right-hand pattern entry from runway 30, completing the maneuver in less than 1 nm in 58 seconds. The subsequent right-hand pattern crosswind was completed in a similarly short distance of less than 1 nm in 9 seconds. The pilot then executed a pattern downwind turn, covering a distance of 2 nm at an angle of 55.3 ° to the runway. The downwind leg itself was 1 nm long and took 53 seconds to complete.
The base leg turn was another 2 nm in distance, with the aircraft turning at an angle of 59.2 ° to the runway. The base leg itself was less than 1 nm long and took 40 seconds to complete. The final turn was the shortest of all, covering a distance of less than 1 nm in 34 seconds. The aircraft then began its final approach to runway 30, flying from the south east at a heading of 298.0 ° and an altitude of 279 ft above ground level (agl).
The landing itself was smooth and controlled, with the aircraft touching down at a speed of 51 kt and a distance of 201 m from the threshold. The touchdown rate was an excellent -80 fpm, and the runway touchdown alignment was perfect. The total landing distance was 363 m, which accounted for 53% of the runway length. The runway rollout alignment was also perfect, indicating a well-executed landing.
In terms of overall performance, the flight covered a total distance of 5 nm, taking 5 minutes to complete and using 1 kg of fuel. The pilot's skill and control were evident throughout the flight, from the smooth takeoff and landing to the precise execution of the traffic pattern maneuvers.
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