Events
Events
Events
Events
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Ease the yoke smoothly to hold a steady one g through the ground roll instead of letting it sag to 0.3 g.
What happened: During the ground roll the g force averaged 0.3 g, well below the smooth steady load expected while tracking the runway.
Watch for: Watch the g meter and hold it steady near one g through the roll.
See Departure Roll
Arrival
Take the power back earlier on final, so the aircraft settles onto the path and the speed comes back to 65 kt together. Do not push down for the height: that only adds speed.
What happened: You crossed the threshold at 64 ft agl, 15 ft agl above the 49 ft agl target, and at 91 kt, 26 kt over the 65 kt threshold speed. High and fast together is energy the runway has to absorb, and this touchdown came 131 m beyond the aim point.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator: 65 kt on short final, then 49 ft agl over the threshold
Every knot above Vref is stored kinetic energy, and energy stored at the threshold must be dissipated in ground effect before the aeroplane will stop flying. Because kinetic energy scales with the square of speed, the excess you must dissipate grows fast. At a 45-knot approach, five knots hot is over a tenth more speed and roughly a quarter more energy to get rid of in ground effect. This is why the fix is never in the flare. It was decided three miles earlier, on final, at the airspeed indicator.
Read more in VRef ExplainedStart to finish · 15 stages, 13 in the score
Events
Events
Events
Events
Taxi out
The roll
The nose wandered in the climb
From 35 ft to the end of the climb the nose moved between 5.7° and 11.9°, and the speed between 75 kt and 106 kt.
Once clear of the runway the nose moved through a wide range, and the speed moved with it. Set the climb attitude, hold it and trim, and give the speed a few seconds to settle before correcting it with a degree or two of pitch. Chasing the airspeed with large pitch changes makes it wander more.
Liftoff and climb
Plan view the roll down the 693 m runway.
Rolled from 75 m in, drifted 3.1 m right of the centreline and was back on it to lift off. Airborne 51 % 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.
Side view from the start of the roll to the end of Climb 3 at 929 ft. The distance scale changes past the runway end.
Reached 35 ft with 141 m of runway left; gear up at 150 ft, inside the 400 ft that gets full marks; then climbing at 1,060 fpm on average to 929 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 dark stretch of the roll is the run with the nose up and the wheels still on, with its length and time under the runway. The gear-up ring is coloured by its mark. The shaded stretch is Climb 3, scored on its average speed against the target.
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 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 grey band is the run between the nose coming up and the wheels leaving the runway. The figures at liftoff are the pitch then and how fast the nose came up, in degrees a second. The grey dashed line across the pitch is the attitude held from 35 ft to the end: a nose held steady is a climb speed that holds, and the airspeed trace sits directly above it to compare. The shaded stretch is Climb 3, the part of the climb scored on holding the climb speed.
Over the threshold
The flare strayed well off the target profile
Crossing the threshold 26 kt above target, the flare took all the sink out 24 ft agl above the runway and the aircraft then dropped the rest of the way, 715 fpm of sink coming back. Touchdown was 582 m past the threshold. Hold the attitude and let it settle rather than pushing - that excess speed is what turns a normal flare into a balloon, so the fix is on the approach, not in the flare.
Touchdown
Rollout
Side view — the last 896 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 64 ft, 14 ft above the 50 ft target; began the flare at 35 ft; ballooned 5 ft from 21 ft. Touched down 582 m in, 277 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 896 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 the flare the descent stopped and turned into a climb of 160 fpm before coming down at 290 fpm to touch. The nose came up 2.9° on the way down. Into the flare at 86 kt, 21 kt over the 65 kt approach speed, and 58 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 full 896 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 2.5 m right of the centreline, and stayed about there down the rollout, 3.3 m right at the widest. Little crosswind (1 kt): nothing to correct for. Touched down with the nose 3° right of the track, 4.4° of bank.
Wind 180° at 2 kt · 1 kt tail · 1 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 582 m past the threshold — beyond the full-score zone. The 1.25 G arrival bounced.
The stop — touchdown to taxi speed.
From 68 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 12 s, an average deceleration of 0.16 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 Piper PA-24 Comanche departed from runway 23 at LFKA Albertville General Pierre Delachenal Airfield. The take-off roll was 358 m, which was 52 % of the runway, and rotation occurred at 66 kt. Local weather at departure was 15 °C with wind 2 kt from 138°, giving a 2 kt cross-wind and no head-wind.
Initial climb to 1 000 ft agl took 50 seconds, averaging 1 110 fpm and reaching 106 kt at the top of the climb. The aircraft then climbed from 2 018 ft asl to 4 992 ft asl in 7 minutes while covering 16 nm, passing overhead Sainte-Helene-sur-Isère and briefly leveling off at 4 100 ft asl. Cruise was maintained at 4 700 ft asl for 5 minutes, covering 11 nm, with the flight passing overhead Laissaud. Descent began from 4 772 ft asl to 841 ft asl in 4 minutes, covering 8 nm, starting overhead Froges.
Landing was made on runway 04 at LFLG Aérodrome de Grenoble Le Versoud. The runway length is 896 m. The threshold height at 64 ft agl was above target and the threshold speed was excessively high at 91 kt. The flare was very poor; the aircraft ballooned in the flare. Touchdown occurred very far down the runway, using more than 50 % of the available runway. Touchdown speed was 58 kt, which was good, and the vertical speed was -287 fpm, described as fair. The touchdown point was slightly misaligned by 3.3 m from the centreline. One bounce occurred on touchdown. Total landing distance was 843 m, 94 % of the runway, and the rollout alignment was perfect.
Local weather at landing was 18 °C with wind 3 kt from 180°, giving a 2 kt cross-wind and a 2 kt tail-wind. The total flight covered 37 nm, lasted 18 minutes and used 14 kg of fuel.
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