Events
Events
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Ease back pressure in smoothly as you approach 70 kt, holding a steady rotation rate rather than snatching the controls.
What happened: On the takeoff roll the aircraft bounced before becoming fully airborne.
Watch for: Attitude indicator: a smooth, continuous pitch-up through liftoff with no secondary bounce.
See Departure Roll
Arrival
Track the centreline through touchdown using small rudder corrections against a point at the far end of the runway.
What happened: The aircraft touched down off the centreline at 16 m, and drifting off centreline at touchdown usually carries through into the rollout, as it did here with alignment reaching 27 m.
Watch for: Watch runway centreline position, keeping deviation inside the limit through touchdown and rollout.
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 · 15 stages, 12 in the score
Events
Events
From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Lifted off at 71 kt with 6.9° 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 36 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 573 m of runway left.
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 1,224 m runway.
Rolled from 90 m in, drifted right of the centreline, 6.5 m at the widest, and lifted off 6.4 m right, in 14 kn of crosswind from the right. Airborne 19 % 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.
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, 1.3 nm out at 126 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.
Low on downwind: 773 ft against 1,000 ft, 227 ft below.
Descending on downwind. Power comes back abeam, the aircraft isn't re-trimmed, your eyes are outside judging the turn point, and 100 ft leaks away before base. Shows up as a low gate 2, and everything after it is a scramble.
Read more in Pattern WorkOff heading: 7° 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 1.4 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 110 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 657 m left of the centreline at 1.4 nm, then inside the band from 1.0 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 38 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 23 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Fast from 1.4 nm, where the final began, to the threshold (up to +47 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
Great landing flare. It lost 4.4 points, mostly for the nose going up and down 5 times.
11 kt across from the right, which takes about 10° of crab to hold the centreline at 63 kt. Touched down with the nose 27° into wind, 3° of bank.
Wind 237° at 13 kt · 7 kt head · 11 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.
Side view — the last 1,224 m of the approach.
Began the flare at 41 ft, 195 m before the threshold; crossed the threshold at 12 ft, 38 ft below the 50 ft target; ballooned 2 ft from 35 ft. Touched down 310 m in, close to 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 1,224 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 550 fpm at the flare to 150 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 1.9° 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 1,224 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 27 m left of the centreline, and steered back to 11 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 310 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
Departing from runway 18 at EDFB Reichelsheim Airfield, the Extra 330 aircraft began its takeoff roll, accelerating to a liftoff speed of 73 kt in a distance of 376 m, which accounted for 31% of the available runway length. The local weather conditions at the time of departure featured a temperature of 26 °C and a wind speed of 12 kt from 237°, resulting in a crosswind of 11 kt and a headwind of 6 kt.
As the aircraft entered the left-hand traffic pattern, it demonstrated a swift and efficient entry, covering a distance of less than 1 nm in 39 seconds. The subsequent left-hand pattern crosswind leg was completed in 24 seconds, with a distance of 1 nm. The pilot then executed a pattern downwind turn, covering a distance of 2 nm at an angle of 63.5° to the runway. The downwind leg itself was completed in 62 seconds, with a distance of 2 nm. Following the base leg turn, the aircraft covered a distance of 2 nm at an angle of 49.9° to the runway, before entering the base leg, which was completed in 29 seconds with a distance of less than 1 nm. The final turn was executed in 49 seconds, covering a distance of 1 nm.
The aircraft then began its final approach to runway 18, descending from an altitude of 187 ft agl at a heading of 179.0°. The landing was executed with a threshold speed of 77 kt, which was well above the target speed. The touchdown distance was 312 m, and the touchdown speed was 63 kt, both of which were considered good. However, the runway touchdown position was significantly misaligned from the centreline by 26.7 m. The total landing distance was 653 m, accounting for 53% of the available runway length. The runway rollout alignment was also misaligned by 30.3 m from the centreline. The total flight distance was 8 nm, and the aircraft used 3 kg of fuel during the flight.
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