Events
Events
Events
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 · 13 stages, 11 in the score
Events
Events
Events
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 53 kt with 6.6° 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 311 ft. The distance scale changes past the runway end.
Reached 35 ft with 40 m of runway left; then climbing at 750 fpm on average to 311 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 581 m runway.
Rolled from 303 m in, drifted left of the centreline, 6.2 m at the widest, and lifted off 6.2 m left. Airborne 60 % 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.
Left-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
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 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: 13° 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.
The final from 4 nm.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 2° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 1.4 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 90 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 3× larger than distances along the final.
Joined 807 m right 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 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 −13 kt and +1 kt on the approach speed of 70 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, wings level.
Wind 266° 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 55 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 6 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 581 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 10 ft, 40 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 138 m in, 167 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 581 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 310 fpm at 11 ft to 50 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 5.4° 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 full 581 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 9.5 m left of the centreline, and stayed about there down the rollout, 10 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 138 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The 1.15 G arrival bounced.
The rest of the report
The flight began with a departure roll from runway 05 at EHOP Middenmeer Aerodrome, where the DA40-XLS aircraft took off with a takeoff distance of 79 meters, which accounted for 14% of the runway. The liftoff speed was 53 knots, and the local weather conditions were characterized by a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 1 knot at 266 degrees, resulting in a negligible crosswind and tailwind.
As the aircraft entered the left-hand pattern, it did so from runway 05, with a distance of less than 1 nautical mile covered in 17 seconds. The left-hand pattern crosswind was also less than 1 nautical mile in 29 seconds. The pattern downwind turn was completed with a distance of 2 nautical miles, and the angle to the runway was 45 degrees at 164.2 degrees.
The final approach to runway 05 was made from the southwest, with a heading of 53.0 degrees at 0 nautical miles and 27.7 meters above ground level. The landing on runway 05 was successful, with a threshold speed that was slightly below the target at 57 knots. The touchdown distance was good at 136 meters, and the touchdown speed was also good at 47 knots, with a perfect touchdown rate of -0.2 meters per second.
However, the runway touchdown position was misaligned by 9.5 meters from the centerline, and the runway rollout alignment was slightly misaligned by 10.6 meters from the centerline. The total landing distance was 247 meters, which accounted for 43% of the runway.
After landing, the aircraft taxied to the parking area from the runway, covering a distance of less than 1 nautical mile in 1 minute. The total flight distance was 3 nautical miles, and the flight duration was 6 minutes, with a fuel consumption of 39 kilograms.
Scroll or drag the slider to zoom · double-click to reset · hover for values