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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Hold the nose down until the speed reaches 56 kt, then rotate.
What happened: You started the rotation at 45 kt, 11 kt before the 56 kt rotation speed.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator: 56 kt at rotation
See Departure Roll
Arrival
Add power on short final to hold speed at 58 kt, correcting the slow threshold speed before it carries through to the flare.
What happened: Threshold speed was slow at 58 kt against 58 kt, and touchdown followed short of the aim point at 196 m. Crossing the threshold slow like this usually carries the touchdown short.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator against 58 kt on short final.
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 · 17 stages, 14 in the score
Events
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From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Rotated at 45 kt, 11 kt below the 56 kt target, and lifted off at 64 kt 4.8 s later, the nose coming up at 0.6° 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 62 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 212 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 837 m runway.
Rolled from 67 m in, drifted 2.5 m right of the centreline and was back on it to lift off. Airborne 45 % 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, 0.8 nm out at 85 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.
Off heading: 12° 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 WorkHigh on downwind: 1,316 ft against 1,000 ft, 316 ft above.
Downwind. Parallel to the runway, opposite the landing direction, at pattern altitude and roughly 90 kt. The single most important moment of the entire circuit is the point abeam your intended touchdown point. Power back (around 1,700 RPM in a 172 works as a starting value to calibrate), first stage of flap, pre-landing flow, and re-trim. Everything from abeam to touchdown is one continuous energy problem. Arrive at the abeam point high or fast and you'll pay for it ninety seconds later in the flare, which is why analysing only the touchdown so often misdiagnoses the fault.
Read more in Pattern WorkGood: full marks on the turn and the leg after it.
Good: full marks on the turn.
The final from 4 nm.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 2° band in green.
High from 1.5 nm, where the final began, to 0.6 nm (up to 450 ft over), then back on it to the threshold.
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 312 m left of the centreline at 1.5 nm, then 65 m right of it from 1.1 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 29 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 17 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Fast from 1.5 nm, where the final began, to 0.9 nm (up to +29 kt), then inside the band to the threshold.
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 aircraft touched down before the threshold. Everything the flare is measured against - the profile, the crossing height, the aim point - is referenced to a threshold this landing never reached, so read the numbers below as what happened short of the runway, not on it. Landing short is the fault to fix before anything about the hold-off is worth judging.
No crosswind: nothing to correct for. Touched down straight, wings level.
Wind 270° at 1 kt · 0 kt head · 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 56 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 10 s, an average deceleration of 0.15 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 837 m of the approach.
Began the flare at 24 ft, 277 m before the threshold; crossed the threshold at 82 ft, 32 ft above the 50 ft target. Touched down 196 m before the threshold.
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 837 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.
Plan view — the full 837 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
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.
Touched down 196 m short of the threshold. The 417 fpm arrival was firm.
The rest of the report
The Cessna 172 departed from runway 34 at LIRU Rome Urbe Airport. Takeoff used 425 m, 51 % of the runway, and rotation occurred at 45 kt. Local weather was 15 °C with wind 1 kt from 269°, giving a 1 kt cross-wind and no head-wind.
Initial climb reached 400 ft agl in 6 seconds, averaging 676 fpm and attaining 69 kt at the top of the climb.
The left-hand circuit lasted 5 minutes. The downwind leg was 3 nm and was flown in 111 seconds at 1,320 ft agl. The base leg was less than 1 nm and was completed in 12 seconds.
During final approach to runway 34, descent was from 982 ft agl to 93 ft agl in 58 seconds. At 500 ft above the runway the stabilisation checks were: gear down, landing flap, sink rate, on speed, wings level - all met; on glideslope and on centreline - not met.
Landing occurred on runway 34. Touchdown was 196 m short of the threshold; the threshold speed was 58 kt. Flare was described as a fair landing flare with little round-out. Touchdown speed was 48 kt and the rate was hard at minus 418 fpm. The touchdown point was misaligned by 11.7 m from the centreline. No bounce occurred. Total landing distance was 374 m, 45 % of the runway, and rollout alignment was very good.
Taxiing from the runway to the parking area took less than 1 minute and covered less than 1 nm. The total flight was 7 nm, lasted 6 minutes and used 0 kg of fuel.
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