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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Raise the gear lever promptly once a positive climb is confirmed, before reaching the target retraction height.
What happened: Gear retraction was delayed, with the gear not coming up until 438 ft agl.
Watch for: Landing gear: up by the normal retraction gate
Arrival
Begin the flare with progressive back pressure and keep it coming until the sink is arrested, rather than flying it on flat.
What happened: The nose was barely raised in the flare and little of the sink was taken out, flying the aircraft onto the runway. This pattern usually carries through to a firm touchdown with a noticeable sink rate.
Watch for: Vertical speed indicator: a smoothly reducing sink through the normal flare band, not a steady rate into the runway.
On a 3° glideslope your sink rate in feet per minute is roughly your groundspeed in knots times five (5.3, strictly). A Cessna 172 at 65 kt groundspeed is coming down at about 345 fpm. An A320 at 140 kt groundspeed is coming down at about 740 fpm. the entire job of the flare is to take that 350 to 750 fpm and reduce it to something in the normal band, in roughly the last five seconds of the flight.
Read more in How to Land a Plane Smoothly in Microsoft Flight SimulatorStart to finish · 15 stages, 13 in the score
Events
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Events
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Events
From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Rotated at 152 kt, 4 kt above the 148 kt target, and lifted off at 163 kt 3.1 s later, the nose coming up at 2.9° a second. Climb 3 averaged 199 kt, 15 kt over its 184 kt target.
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 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 917 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 1,713 m of runway left; gear up at 438 ft, 38 ft past the 400 ft that gets full marks; then climbing at 2,110 fpm on average to 917 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 gear-up ring is coloured by its mark. The shaded stretch is Climb 3, scored on its average speed against the target.
Plan view the roll down the 3,439 m runway.
Rolled from 150 m in, drifted 2.4 m right of the centreline and was back on it to lift off, in 5 kn of crosswind from the right. Airborne 41 % 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. They are the approach's score: the checks passed out of the checks that ran.
When the approach was stable
Every check met from 4 nm to 1.0 nm, then not again: low from 1.0 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.
The final from 4 nm, with the stabilisation gates on it.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 1° band in green.
On the glideslope from 4 nm to 1.0 nm, then low to the threshold (up to 130 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° 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 21× larger than distances along the final.
Inside the 1° band all the way from 4 nm, never more than 18 m off the centreline.
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 35 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 21 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Inside the speed band all the way, between −3 kt and +5 kt on the approach speed of 139 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 strayed well off the target profile. The aircraft was flown onto the runway - pitch changed 0.1° and the descent was barely arrested. Touchdown was 221 m past the threshold. Start the flare with progressive back pressure rather than one pull, and keep it coming.
3 kt across from the left, which takes about 1° of crab to hold the centreline at 138 kt. Touched down with the nose 3° into wind, wings level.
Wind 209° at 3 kt · 0 kt head · 3 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 139 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 47 s, an average deceleration of 0.13 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 17 ft, 33 ft below the 50 ft target; began the flare at 15 ft. Touched down 221 m in, 84 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 grew from 250 fpm at the flare to 470 fpm at touchdown. The nose went down 0.7° 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 2,246 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 3.5 m right of the centreline, and steered back to 0.3 m left by the end of 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 arrow beside the runway is the crosswind, pointing the way the air was moving, so it pushed the aircraft that way.
The 221 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The 467 fpm arrival was firm.
The rest of the report
The Airbus A330-900 taxied from the parking area to runway 24 at EHAM Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in 5 minutes, covering 2 nm.
During the departure roll on runway 24, the aircraft accelerated to a liftoff speed of 163 kt and left the ground after traveling 1,436 m, which represented 42 % of the runway; local weather reported a temperature of 20 °C, wind 8 kt at 279 °, with a 5 kt crosswind and a 6 kt headwind.
Climb commenced 1 mile north-west of Aalsmeerderbrug (Provincie Noord-Holland, The Netherlands), with the airplane climbing from 973 ft asl to 38,982 ft asl, an increase of 38,008 ft achieved in 27 minutes while covering 170 nm.
Level cruise began 1 mile south-west of Frieres-Faillouel (Hauts-de-France, France) and continued for 179 minutes, during which the aircraft flew 1,378 nm.
Descent was initiated 76 miles east of Agua Retorta (Azores, Portugal), descending from 39,013 ft asl to 1,448 ft asl, a loss of 37,565 ft in 19 minutes and covering 105 nm.
The final approach to runway 30 at LPPD João Paulo II Airport was flown from the east on a heading of 292.0 °, at 4 nm and 1,218 ft agl.
Landing on runway 30 was executed with a threshold speed of 138 kt; touchdown occurred 223 m down the runway at the same speed, with a touchdown rate of minus 161 fpm and a very good runway-touchdown alignment; local conditions were a temperature of 23 °C, wind 3 kt at 209 °, a 3 kt crosswind and no headwind. The total landing distance measured 1,328 m, representing 59 % of the runway, and rollout alignment was very good.
After exiting the runway, the aircraft taxied to the parking area in 1 minute, covering less than 1 nm.
In total, the flight covered 1,661 nm, took 234 minutes, and consumed 19,867 kg of fuel.
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