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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Use smaller, smoother aileron inputs to hold the climb bank angle near wings-level.
What happened: During Climb 3 the bank angle averaged 2°, well beyond a steady wings-level climb.
Watch for: Attitude indicator - bank angle, keeping it close to wings-level through the climb.
Arrival
Start the flare with progressive back pressure and keep it coming until the sink is arrested.
What happened: The aircraft was flown onto the runway: the nose was barely raised and little of the sink was taken out, touching down at 175 fpm.
Watch for: Pitch attitude: rising steadily through the flare until the sink is checked.
See Arrival Landing
Below a thousand feet the aeroplane is slow, heavy and close to the ground. A steep turn loses lift, raises the stall speed and flattens the climb just when the gradient matters most. A normal turn on course is a rate one — fifteen degrees or so, twenty-five at the outside, this penalty is to acknowledge when a turn has stopped being a turn and become a manoeuvre.
Read more in Improve Your Take-OffsStart to finish · 21 stages, 19 in the score
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From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Lifted off at 75 kt with 3.8° 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 shaded stretch is Climb 3, the part of the climb scored on holding the climb speed.
The takeoff, point by point
Side view from the start of the roll to the end of Climb 3 at 989 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 3,044 m of runway left; then climbing at 1,050 fpm on average to 989 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. The shaded stretch is Climb 3, scored on its average speed against the target.
Plan view the roll down the 3,403 m runway.
Rolled from the start of the runway, drifted right of the centreline, 2.6 m at the widest, and lifted off 2.6 m right, in 9 kn of crosswind from the right. Airborne 4 % 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.
Two stabilised approach gates, each with seven checks, where the approach path is 1,000 ft and 500 ft above the runway.
At the 1,000 ft gate: centreline more than 1° off.
When the approach was stable
Every check met from 2.0 nm, about 710 ft above the runway, to the threshold, after the 1,000 ft gate and before the 500 ft gate. The last to settle was the centreline.
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 4 nm to the threshold, never more than 40 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.
Joined 226 m left of the centreline, then inside the band from 2.0 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 41 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 24 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Inside the speed band all the way, between −11 kt and +20 kt on the approach speed of 81 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 093° at 1 kt · 1 kt tail · 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 63 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 11 s, an average deceleration of 0.18 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 1,524 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 53 ft, close to the 50 ft target. Touched down 443 m in, 138 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 400 fpm at 53 ft to 180 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 3.8° 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 first 1,524 m of the 3,202 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 4.9 m left of the centreline, and stayed about there down the rollout, 5.9 m left at the widest.
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 443 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 03R at Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, with the DA42-TDI aircraft taking off in a relatively short distance of 164 meters, which accounted for only 5% of the runway. The liftoff speed was 75 knots, and the local weather conditions at the time were characterized by a temperature of 16 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 35 knots from a direction of 138 degrees.
As the aircraft climbed away from the airport, it began to ascend from an initial altitude of 1,284 feet above sea level to a cruising altitude of 9,756 feet, a vertical distance of 8,472 feet, in just 7 minutes. This climb phase covered a horizontal distance of 12 nautical miles. The aircraft then entered a level cruise phase, which lasted for 20 minutes and covered a distance of 30 nautical miles, with the aircraft flying 5 miles northeast of Rafina, Attica, Greece.
The first descent phase began 3 miles south of Ampelakia, Attica, Greece, where the aircraft descended from 9,901 feet to 7,077 feet, a vertical distance of 2,824 feet, in just 2 minutes. This descent phase covered a horizontal distance of 4 nautical miles. The aircraft then entered another level cruise phase, which lasted for 3 minutes and covered a distance of 29 nautical miles, with the aircraft flying 3 miles southwest of Salamina, Attica, Greece.
The second descent phase began 1 mile east of Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, where the aircraft descended from 6,774 feet to 4,329 feet, a vertical distance of 2,446 feet, in just 3 minutes. This descent phase covered a horizontal distance of 8 nautical miles. The aircraft then entered another level cruise phase, which lasted for 3 minutes and covered a distance of 6 nautical miles, with the aircraft flying 7 miles east of Rafina, Attica, Greece.
The third descent phase began 4 miles west of Marmarion, Central Greece, where the aircraft descended from 4,004 feet to 2,320 feet, a vertical distance of 1,684 feet, in just 3 minutes. This descent phase covered a horizontal distance of 8 nautical miles. The aircraft then entered another level cruise phase, which lasted for 4 minutes and covered a distance of 9 nautical miles, with the aircraft flying 6 miles east of Nea Makri, Attica, Greece.
The final approach to runway 21R at Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport was made from the northeast, with the aircraft flying at a heading of 220.0 degrees and at an altitude of 1,314 feet above ground level. The landing was made on the runway, with the aircraft touching down at a speed of 59 knots and a distance of 441 meters. The touchdown rate was smooth, at -142 feet per minute, and the runway touchdown position was slightly misaligned from the centerline by 4.9 meters.
The total landing distance was 672 meters, which accounted for 21% of the runway length. The runway rollout alignment was very good, and the aircraft used a total of 25 kilograms of fuel for the flight, which covered a distance of 111 nautical miles and took 44 minutes to complete.
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