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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Arrival
Add power on final to keep the approach speed at 84 kt rather than letting it decay before the threshold.
What happened: The aircraft crossed the threshold at 68 kt, 16 kt below the target, and touchdown followed with a firm, high sink rate arrival. Crossing the threshold slow like this usually carries through to a firmer touchdown as the flare runs out of energy.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator: 84 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 · 14 stages, 13 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.
Rotated at 68 kt, 9 kt below the 77 kt target, and lifted off at 75 kt 1.5 s later, the nose coming up at 2.3° 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 348 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 1,049 m of runway left; then climbing at 600 fpm on average to 348 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 2,225 m runway.
Rolled from 798 m in, never more than 0.3 m off the centreline. Airborne 39 % 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, 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.
Good: full marks on the turn and the leg after it.
Good: 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 WorkGood: full marks on the turn.
The final from 4 nm.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 2° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 0.7 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 70 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 4× larger than distances along the final.
Joined 57 m left of the centreline at 0.7 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 42 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 25 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Slow from 0.7 nm, where the final began, to the threshold (up to −16 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
The flare mostly held the target profile. The aircraft was flown onto the runway - pitch changed 1.5° and the descent was barely arrested. Touchdown was 159 m past the threshold. Start the flare with progressive back pressure rather than one pull, and keep it coming.
No crosswind: nothing to correct for. Touched down straight, wings level.
Wind 269° 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 67 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 8 s, an average deceleration of 0.25 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.
Began the flare at 24 ft, 81 m before the threshold; crossed the threshold at 14 ft, 36 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 159 m in, 146 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 300 fpm at the flare to 180 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 1.5° 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 2,225 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down on the centreline, and stayed within 1.8 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 159 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The Pilatus PC-12 taxied to runway 09 at EGGP Liverpool John Lennon Airport and departed from that runway. Take-off was performed using 907 m of runway, which is 41 % of the available length. Rotation occurred at 68 kt. Local weather at departure was 16 °C with wind 1 kt from 270°, crosswind 0 kt and tailwind 1 kt.
Initial climb to 400 ft agl lasted 33 seconds, averaging 768 fpm and reaching 99 kt at the top of the climb. The aircraft then continued the climb, entered cruise, and began the right-hand circuit for runway 09.
The circuit required 4 minutes. The downwind leg was 2 nm and was flown in 78 seconds at 990 ft agl. The base leg was less than 1 nm and was completed in 33 seconds.
On final approach to runway 09 the threshold speed was slightly below target at 68 kt. The flare was described as very good, with little round-out. Touchdown occurred at 66 kt, 159 m down the runway, with a descent rate of minus 185 fpm. Alignment on touchdown and during rollout was perfect. No bounce was observed. Total landing distance was 367 m, which is 16 % of the runway length. Runway rollout alignment remained perfect.
Local weather at landing was 15 °C with wind 1 kt from 270°, crosswind 0 kt and tailwind 1 kt. The flight covered 7 nm in 5 minutes and consumed 13 kg of fuel.
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