Events
Events
Events
Events
Events
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Arrival
Reduce power earlier on final so the speed settles to 127 kt before the gate.
What happened: The approach was 16 kt fast at the stabilisation gate, and carrying that extra speed over the threshold usually carries the touchdown long, which happened here by 182 m.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator: 127 kt at the threshold.
A typical trainer rotates in the mid-50s of knots - a 172 at around 55 KIAS, climbing out at a Vy in the low 70s, though check your own POH rather than memorising Cessna's numbers - and the transferable rule is that Vr sits just above the stall speed in takeoff configuration. Rotate early because "it felt ready" and the aircraft lifts off inside ground effect, where induced drag is reduced, then climbs out of it into more drag. On a marginal-performance day the result is an aircraft that lifts off and then refuses to climb, sagging back towards the runway.
Read more in Improve Your Take-OffsStart to finish · 9 stages, 8 in the score
Events
Events
Events
Events
Events
Taxi out
The roll
Liftoff pitch close to a tail strike
The wheels left at 9.3°, 0.4° short of this aircraft's 9.7° tail strike.
The tail can only touch while the main wheels are still on the runway, so the margin that matters is the one at liftoff. Rotate at the rotate speed, at the normal rate, and let the aircraft fly itself off at its own attitude: keep the pull going towards the climb attitude only once the wheels have left. Rotating early, or pulling faster than the aircraft can lift off, is what eats the margin.
Liftoff and climb
Plan view the roll down the 2,227 m runway.
Rolled from 1,530 m in, drifted right of the centreline, 11 m at the widest, and lifted off 12 m right, in 5 kn of crosswind from the right. Airborne 76 % 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. The arrow beside the runway is the crosswind, pointing the way the air was moving, so it pushed the aircraft that way.
Side view from the start of the roll to 297 ft.
Reached 35 ft 268 m past the runway end; then climbing at 1,090 fpm on average to 297 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.
Speed and pitch from brake release to the end of the climb, against time.
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.
One stabilised approach gate: five checks where the approach path is 300 ft above the runway. The 1,000 ft gate was not assessed, because the approach did not join final that far out. These checks are the approach's score.
At the 300 ft gate: speed more than 15 kt above the approach speed of 127 kt.
Still turning onto final at the lower gate, so the centreline and wings level are not asked there - the aeroplane was not lined up yet, and was banked because it was turning. The other checks are marked as usual.
When the approach was stable
Never every check met at once: banked until 1.2 nm, sinking too fast until 0.3 nm, left of the centreline until 0.2 nm, fast from 0.8 nm and low from 0.2 nm to the threshold.
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.
Why this is not a circuit
Off and back onto LIRN, scored as a flight. A circuit passes all five:
The final from 4 nm, with the stabilisation gates on it.
Profile height against the 3.3° glideslope, with its 1° band in green.
On the glideslope from 1.4 nm, where the final began, to 0.2 nm, then low to the threshold (up to 50 ft under).
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: 3.3° here, which is about 350 ft for every nautical mile out, crossing the threshold at about 60 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.
Joined 566 m left of the centreline at 1.4 nm, then inside the band from 0.2 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 32 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 19 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Inside the speed band from 1.4 nm, where the final began, to 0.8 nm, then fast 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
The flare tracked the target profile closely
Crossing the threshold 33 kt above target, the aircraft floated down the runway before touching. Touchdown was 639 m past the threshold. The flare cannot burn off excess energy - fix the approach speed and the float goes with it.
Touchdown
Rollout
Side view — the last 1,524 m of the approach.
Began the flare high, at 54 ft, 229 m before the threshold; crossed the threshold at 24 ft, 26 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 639 m in, 335 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.
The sink went from 740 fpm at the flare to 220 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 3.6° on the way down. Into the flare at 166 kt, 39 kt over the 127 kt approach speed, and 147 kt at touchdown.
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 2,440 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 5.5 m right of the centreline, and steered back to 0.1 m left by the end of the rollout. 9 kt across from the left, which takes about 4° of crab to hold the centreline at 147 kt. Touched down with the nose 5° into wind, 2.3° of bank.
Wind 199° at 16 kt · 12 kt head · 9 kt across
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 arrow beside the runway is the crosswind, pointing the way the air was moving, so it pushed the aircraft that way. 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. The sentence gives the nose against the direction you were actually moving as the wheels touched, and the steepest bank as they touched, the figure the touchdown's Bank tile marks. The rest of it is shown for reading, not marked.
Touched down 639 m past the threshold — beyond the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The stop — touchdown to taxi speed.
From 136 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 12 s, an average deceleration of 0.47 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.
The rest of the report
The Airbus A321neo departed from runway 06 at LIRN Naples International Airport. Takeoff used 1,668 m of runway, which is 75 % of the available length, and liftoff occurred at 95 kt. The local weather at departure was 21 °C with wind 9 kt from 199°, a 6 kt crosswind and a 7 kt tailwind.
Initial climb to 400 ft agl lasted 15 seconds, averaging 1,072 fpm and reaching 144 kt at the top of the climb. The aircraft then levelled at 800 ft asl for about one minute, covering 3 nm while positioned roughly one mile south-east of Casoria.
During final approach to runway 24 at LIRN, the descent from 510 ft agl to -57 ft agl was completed in 32 seconds. At 500 ft above the runway the stabilisation checks were met for gear down, landing flap, sink rate, glideslope and speed.
Landing was made on runway 24, whose length is 2,440 m. The threshold height was good, but the threshold speed was too high at 160 kt. The flare was described as excellent; the aircraft floated before touchdown. Touchdown occurred 221 m beyond the touchdown zone at a speed of 147 kt, which was fast, with a fair descent rate of minus 220 fpm. The touchdown point was slightly off centreline by 6.2 m. No bounce was observed.
The total landing distance was 1,069 m, representing 44 % of the runway, and the rollout alignment was perfect. Local weather at landing was 20 °C with wind 10 kt from 199°, a 6 kt crosswind and an 8 kt headwind.
The entire flight covered 6 nm, lasted 2 minutes and consumed 120 kg of fuel.
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