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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Apply small rudder corrections to track the centreline against a point at the far end of the runway.
What happened: The takeoff roll drifted 700 ft off the centreline, and a heading variation of -9.6° usually follows into the initial climb.
Watch for: Heading indicator: wings-level runway heading held through the climb
Arrival
Level off earlier after the climb-out, using a timely power reduction to join downwind at the correct circuit altitude.
What happened: The downwind leg was flown high, at 1,278 ft agl against the published circuit altitude.
Watch for: Altimeter: the published circuit altitude throughout the downwind leg.
See Pattern Downwind
A small uncorrected heading error at 40 knots becomes a metre of offset per second by 100 knots, noticed only at rotation, producing a crabbed liftoff. Root cause is nearly always eyes on the tape instead of the far end of the runway. Small heading changes displace a distant point visibly long before the nearby centreline stripes look wrong.
Read more in Improve Your Take-OffsStart to finish · 16 stages, 14 in the score
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From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Rotated at 73 kt, 3 kt above the 70 kt target, and lifted off at 78 kt 1.3 s later, the nose coming up at 2.6° 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 140 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 4,840 ft of runway left; then climbing at 210 fpm on average to 140 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 7,980 ft runway.
Rolled from 529 ft in, drifted left of the centreline, 1,354 ft at the widest, and lifted off 609 ft left. Airborne 24 % 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, 1.1 nm out at 114 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.
Early: turned crosswind at 645 ft. US guidance is within 300 ft of circuit height, 700 ft here, so the climb ends on downwind.
Crosswind. Turn 90 degrees when you're within about 300 ft of pattern altitude, which at a standard field means roughly 700 ft AGL, or two-thirds of the way up. That rule exists for a reason worth knowing. It means you finish the climb and level off on downwind, wings level, rather than trying to capture an altitude mid-turn. If you turn crosswind at pattern altitude instead, you arrive on downwind still cleaning up, and the abeam point catches you unconfigured.
Read more in Pattern WorkHigh on downwind: 1,278 ft against 1,000 ft, 278 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.
Inside the glideslope band from 2.4 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 40 ft below the slope.
Your height above the runway against the distance still to go. The glideslope is the steady descent path to the aiming point, 1,000 ft 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 1,720 ft left of the centreline at 2.4 nm, then inside the band from 1.9 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 39 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 23 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Inside the speed band all the way, between +5 kt and +17 kt on the approach speed of 77 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
Perfect landing flare
Little crosswind (1 kt): nothing to correct for. Touched down straight, wings level.
Wind 278° at 4 kt · 3 kt head · 1 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 76 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 11 s, an average deceleration of 0.22 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 5,000 ft of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 20 ft, 30 ft below the 50 ft target; began the flare at 12 ft. Touched down 986 ft in, close to the ideal 1,000 ft.
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 5,000 ft across. The dashed line is the ideal, 50 ft over the threshold and down 1,000 ft 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 380 fpm at the flare to 140 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 1.5° 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 5,000 ft of the 7,980 ft runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down on the centreline, and stayed within 2 ft of it down 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 986 ft touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The Piper PA-28 Arrow III departed KEGE Eagle County Regional Airport on runway 25. The take-off roll was 2,120 ft, which is 27 % of the runway, and rotation occurred at 73 kt. Local weather at departure was temperature 46 °F, wind 6 kt from 269°, with a 1 kt crosswind and a 6 kt headwind.
Initial climb to 400 ft agl took 38 seconds, averaging 377 fpm and reaching 105 kt at the top of the climb. The aircraft then entered a left-hand circuit for runway 25. The downwind leg was 3 nm and lasted 96 seconds at 1,340 ft agl; the base leg was less than 1 nm and lasted 17 seconds.
On final approach the descent was from 821 ft agl to 99 ft agl in 87 seconds. At 500 ft above the runway the stabilisation checks were all met: gear down, landing flap, sink rate, glideslope, centreline, speed, and wings level.
Landing was on runway 25, which is 7,980 ft long. The threshold speed was slightly above target at 82 kt. The flare was described as perfect. Touchdown occurred at 72 kt, 986 ft from the threshold, with a smooth rate of -140 fpm and perfect runway-touchdown alignment. No bounce was observed. Total landing distance was 1,932 ft, 24 % of the runway, and rollout alignment was perfect.
After landing, taxi to the parking area took 4 minutes and covered less than 1 nm. The entire flight covered 11 nm in 8 minutes and consumed 7 lb of fuel. Local weather at landing was temperature 46 °F, wind 4 kt from 279°, with a 1 kt crosswind and a 3 kt headwind.
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