Events
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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Ease back pressure in smoothly as you approach 65 kt, holding a steady rotation rate rather than snatching the controls.
What happened: On the takeoff roll the aircraft bounced before becoming fully airborne.
Watch for: Attitude indicator: a smooth, continuous pitch-up through liftoff with no secondary bounce.
See Departure Roll
Fast at the threshold, normal flare, and the runway seems to refuse the aircraft. The instinctive fix - pushing it on - causes the next one. A fast aircraft forced onto the runway touches nosewheel-first or nearly so. The tell is a touchdown that feels soft followed by a bounce that steepens. Pilots fix the bounce recovery; the cause was the 10 knots at the threshold.
Read more in VRef ExplainedStart to finish · 18 stages, 16 in the score
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 67 kt with 1.0° 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 1,205 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 347 m of runway left; then climbing at 1,320 fpm on average to 1,205 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 2,459 m runway.
Rolled from 1,018 m in, drifted left of the centreline, 4.1 m at the widest, and lifted off 3 m left. Airborne 78 % of the way down the runway, past 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 97 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: 10° 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 WorkTurn onto downwind: scored 1.
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 WorkOff heading: 7° 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 WorkGood: full marks on the turn.
One stabilised approach gate for a circuit: seven checks where the approach path is 300 ft above the runway. The 1,000 ft gate is an instrument-approach check and does not apply.
At the 300 ft gate: gear still up, no landing flap set, centreline more than 1° off and speed more than 12 kt above the approach speed of 52 kt.
When the approach was stable
Never every check met at once: gear up all the way, no landing flap all the way, fast all the way, banked until 1.2 nm and right of the centreline until 0.6 nm.
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 2° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 1.5 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 290 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. 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 from 1.5 nm, where the final began, to 1.2 nm, then drifted 46 m right between 1.2 and 0.6 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 26 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 16 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Fast from 1.5 nm, where the final began, to the threshold (up to +40 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
Very good landing flare
No crosswind: nothing to correct for. Touched down straight, wings level.
Wind 210° at 6 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.
Side view — the last 1,524 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 31 ft, 19 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 457 m in, 152 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.
From 23 ft the descent stopped and turned into a climb of 140 fpm before coming down at 70 fpm to touch. The nose came up 3.7° 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 2,459 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down on the centreline, and stayed within 2.6 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 457 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The 1.10 G arrival bounced 5 times.
The rest of the report
The flight began with a taxiing period from the parking area to the runway, which took less than a minute and covered a distance of less than one nautical mile. The aircraft, a VL3, then departed from runway 21 at the José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport. The takeoff distance was 1,924 meters, which accounted for 78% of the runway length. The aircraft lifted off at a speed of 67 knots.
The local weather conditions at the time of takeoff were characterized by a temperature of 27 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 6 knots from a direction of 210 degrees. This resulted in a headwind of 6 knots, with no crosswind component. The aircraft then entered a left-hand pattern, which it completed in a series of turns and legs. The pattern entry from the runway was completed in less than one nautical mile in 15 seconds.
The aircraft then proceeded to complete the left-hand pattern, including a crosswind turn from the runway. This turn covered a distance of one nautical mile in 52 seconds. The pattern downwind turn was completed at an angle of 74.7 degrees to the runway, covering a distance of two nautical miles. The downwind leg itself covered a distance of three nautical miles in 103 seconds.
The aircraft then began its base leg turn, which covered a distance of two nautical miles at an angle of 45.9 degrees to the runway. The base leg itself covered a distance of one nautical mile in 40 seconds. The final turn was completed in less than one nautical mile in 32 seconds, bringing the aircraft onto the final approach to runway 21.
The final approach was made from the north-east, heading 207.0 degrees, at an altitude of 505 feet above ground level and a distance of one nautical mile from the runway. The aircraft then landed on runway 21, which had a length of 2,459 meters. The threshold height was good, but the threshold speed was excessively high at 72 knots.
The touchdown distance was good at 454 meters, but the touchdown speed was fast at 58 knots. The touchdown rate was excellent at -56 feet per minute, and the runway touchdown alignment was perfect. The local weather conditions remained the same, with a temperature of 27 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 6 knots from a direction of 210 degrees.
The total landing distance was 549 meters, which accounted for 22% of the runway length. The runway rollout alignment was very good. The total flight distance was 12 nautical miles, which was covered in 8 minutes. The aircraft used 1 kilogram of fuel during the flight.
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