Events
Events
Events
Events
Events
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Improve the pattern downwind leg
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 WorkStart to finish · 16 stages, 15 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 82 kt with 3.3° 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 529 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 1,039 m of runway left; then climbing at 480 fpm on average to 529 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 1,730 m runway.
Rolled from 64 m in, drifted right of the centreline, 3.2 m at the widest, and lifted off 2.1 m right. Airborne 16 % 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.
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 87 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: 8° 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 WorkLost marks: scored 70.
Late: turned base with the threshold 16° behind, against 45°.
The stopwatch. From abeam the threshold, fly roughly 30 to 45 seconds before turning base, in nil wind at 172 speeds. Treat that as a starting value and calibrate it. If your finals keep coming out at 400 ft instead of 500, add a few seconds. Then adjust for wind, roughly a second per knot of headwind on final (a headwind on final is a tailwind on downwind, carrying you further from the field per second).
Read more in Pattern WorkSteep: 36° 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.
Inside the glideslope band from 1.3 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 110 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 5× larger than distances along the final.
Inside the 1° band all the way from 1.3 nm, never more than 78 m off the centreline.
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 +1 kt and +12 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 straight, 3° of bank.
Wind 120° at 9 kt · 9 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 39 ft, 11 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 245 m in, 60 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 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.
The sink went from 390 fpm at 37 ft to 70 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 3.5° 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 1,730 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 2.5 m right of the centreline.
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 245 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The 1.06 G arrival bounced.
The rest of the report
The flight began with a taxiing period from the parking area to the runway, which took approximately 3 minutes and covered a distance of less than 1 nautical mile. The aircraft, a PA28 Warrior II, then departed from runway 11 at EKRK Copenhagen Roskilde Airport. The takeoff distance was 436 meters, which is 25% of the runway length. The liftoff speed was 82 knots.
During the takeoff, the local weather conditions were favorable, with a temperature of 20°C and a wind speed of 10 knots at 120 degrees. This resulted in a crosswind of 1 knot and a headwind of 10 knots. After takeoff, the aircraft entered a right-hand pattern from runway 11, covering a distance of less than 1 nautical mile in just 10 seconds.
The right-hand pattern crosswind leg was completed in 4 seconds, and the aircraft then proceeded to the downwind turn. This turn was made at an angle of 80.9 degrees to the runway, and the distance covered was negligible. The downwind leg itself was 2 nautical miles long and took 75 seconds to complete.
The base leg turn was made at an angle of 16.2 degrees to the runway, and the distance covered was 1 nautical mile. The base leg was then completed in less than 1 nautical mile in 11 seconds. The final turn was made in 18 seconds, and the aircraft then began its final approach to runway 11.
The final approach was made from the west, heading 116.0 degrees, at an altitude of 1 nautical mile and 388 feet above ground level. The landing was successful, with a touchdown distance of 242 meters and a touchdown speed of 51 knots. The touchdown rate was excellent at -70 feet per minute, and the runway touchdown alignment was very good.
The local weather conditions during the landing were similar to those during takeoff, with a temperature of 19°C and a wind speed of 9 knots at 120 degrees. This resulted in a crosswind of 1 knot and a headwind of 9 knots. The total flight distance was 6 nautical miles, and the flight took 7 minutes to complete. The aircraft used 2 kilograms of fuel during the flight.
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