Events
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Use rudder and aileron to hold the extended centreline, correcting drift before it reaches -0.9°.
What happened: During the initial climb the heading drifted -0.9° off the runway track.
Watch for: Heading indicator: wings level on the runway track
Arrival
Reduce power earlier on final to bleed speed back to 66 kt before crossing the threshold.
What happened: You crossed the threshold at 79 kt, 13 kt above the 66 kt target.
Watch for: Airspeed, targeting 66 kt at the threshold.
See Arrival Landing
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 WorkStart to finish · 16 stages, 13 in the score
Events
From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Rotated at 47 kt, 9 kt below the 56 kt target, and lifted off at 67 kt 3.9 s later, the nose coming up at 1.6° a second.
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 dashed green line is the speed to rotate at for this aircraft at its weight, and the green dot is where the nose started to come up. The figures at liftoff are the pitch then and how fast the nose came up, in degrees a second.
The takeoff, point by point
Side view from the start of the roll to 569 ft. The distance scale changes past the runway end.
Reached 35 ft with 565 m of runway left; then climbing at 660 fpm on average to 569 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 1,293 m runway.
Rolled from 37 m in, drifted left of the centreline, 3.8 m at the widest, and lifted off 2.8 m left. Airborne 26 % 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 105 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: 16° 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 WorkGood: full marks on the turn and the leg after it.
Off heading: 9° from the leg's heading on average.
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 WorkOvershot: went 214 m through the centreline turning final.
Overshooting final. A tailwind component on base sweeps you through the extended centreline, the instinctive correction is to steepen the bank and, when that's not enough, to skid the turn with rudder. In a real aircraft this is the base-to-final stall-spin scenario that kills people. The sim under-punishes it, because a spring yoke transmits no lightening of control force, there's no buffet through your hands, and no seat-of-the-pants sensation of the skid. You get the numbers of the skidded turn without the feel of it. The correct response is the same in both worlds and needs practising until it's reflexive. Don't steepen past 30 degrees, and if you've blown through the centreline, go around and reset.
Read more in Pattern WorkThe final from 4 nm.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 2° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 1.6 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 270 ft above 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.
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 214 m right of the centreline at 1.6 nm, then drifted 53 m left between 0.9 and 0.3 nm, then inside the band from 0.3 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 31 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 19 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Fast from 1.6 nm, where the final began, to the threshold (up to +39 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
Perfect landing flare
No crosswind: nothing to correct for. Touched down straight, wings level.
Wind 358° at 5 kt · 5 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 66 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 12 s, an average deceleration of 0.15 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 1,293 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 27 ft, 23 ft below the 50 ft target; began the flare at 24 ft. Touched down 397 m in, 92 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 1,293 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 580 fpm at the flare to 110 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 3.0° 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 1,293 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 8.7 m left of the centreline, and steered back to 3.5 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.
The 397 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The Cessna Skyhawk departed from runway 36 at EDFB Reichelsheim Airfield. Take-off distance was 412 m, 32 % of the runway, and rotation occurred at 47 kt. Local weather at departure was temperature 12 °C, wind 6 kt from 358°, crosswind 0 kt, headwind 6 kt.
Initial climb to 400 ft agl took 48 seconds, averaging 634 fpm and reaching 97 kt at the top of the climb.
The aircraft entered a left-hand circuit for runway 36. The downwind leg was 3 nm and lasted 92 seconds at 630 ft agl. The base leg was less than 1 nm and lasted 23 seconds.
Final approach descended from 385 ft agl to -391 ft agl in 61 seconds. At 500 ft above the runway the stabilisation checks were: gear down - met; sink rate - met; glideslope - met; landing flap - not met; speed - not met. Configuration on final was flap position 1 at 217 ft agl with an airspeed of 89 kt.
Landing was on runway 36, runway length 1,293 m. The threshold height was good; threshold speed was 80 kt, noted as too high. The flare was described as perfect. Touchdown occurred 397 m down the runway at 65 kt, a little fast, with a smooth descent rate of minus 108 fpm. The touchdown point was misaligned by 8.7 m from the centreline. Local weather at landing was temperature 12 °C, wind 5 kt from 358°, crosswind 0 kt, headwind 5 kt. No bounce occurred. Total landing distance was 718 m, 56 % of the runway, and rollout alignment was very good.
The total flight covered 9 nm in 5 minutes and used 2 kg of fuel.
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