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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Smooth the climb
A good takeoff has a defined shape. It also has a defined end. For an airliner that's thrust reduction and acceleration, commonly somewhere around 1,000 to 1,500 ft above the airfield depending on the operator, while for a light aircraft it's established at Vy with the flaps on schedule. Most simmers have no defined end to their takeoff, which is exactly why it never gets judged.
Read more in Improve Your Take-OffsStart to finish · 16 stages, 14 in the score
Events
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Events
From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Lifted off at 63 kt with 3.9° 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 593 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 1,137 m of runway left; then climbing at 790 fpm on average to 593 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 1,814 m runway.
Rolled from 189 m in, drifted 1.9 m right of the centreline and was back on it to lift off. Airborne 26 % 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.
Right-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 84 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.
Turn onto downwind: scored 39.
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 WorkLate: turned base with the threshold 37° behind, against 45°.
The stopwatch. From abeam the threshold, fly roughly 30 to 45 seconds before turning base, in nil wind at 172 speeds. Treat that as a starting value and calibrate it. If your finals keep coming out at 400 ft instead of 500, add a few seconds. Then adjust for wind, roughly a second per knot of headwind on final (a headwind on final is a tailwind on downwind, carrying you further from the field per second).
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 1.1 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 50 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.
Inside the 1° band all the way from 1.1 nm, never more than 208 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.
Over the threshold
Touchdown
No crosswind: nothing to correct for. Touched down straight, wings level.
Wind 258° at 2 kt · 1 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 53 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 9 s, an average deceleration of 0.14 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 39 ft, 11 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 465 m in, 160 m past 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 went from 590 fpm at 38 ft to 20 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 8.5° 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 1,524 m of the 1,814 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down on the centreline, and stayed within 0.8 m 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 465 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The flight began with a departure roll from runway 23 at EGPE Inverness Airport, where the PA28 Archer II aircraft took off with a takeoff distance of 306 meters, which accounted for 17% of the runway. The liftoff speed was 63 knots, and the local weather conditions were characterized by a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 1 knot at 269 degrees, resulting in a negligible crosswind and headwind.
As the aircraft entered the right-hand pattern from runway 23, it covered a distance of less than 1 nautical mile in 21 seconds. The subsequent right-hand pattern crosswind leg was completed in 16 seconds, covering a distance of less than 1 nautical mile. The pattern downwind turn was executed with an angle to the runway of 65.1 degrees, covering a distance of 1 nautical mile. The downwind leg itself was 2 nautical miles long and took 80 seconds to complete.
The pattern base leg turn was made with an angle to the runway of 37.5 degrees, covering a distance of 1 nautical mile. The base leg was then completed in 10 seconds, covering a distance of less than 1 nautical mile. The final turn was made in 30 seconds, covering a distance of less than 1 nautical mile. The aircraft then began its final approach to runway 23 from the north-east, heading 230 degrees at 1 nautical mile and 75.3 meters above ground level.
The landing on runway 23 was successful, with a threshold speed that was slightly above the target at 75 knots. The touchdown distance was 461 meters, and the touchdown speed was 53 knots, both of which were considered good. The touchdown rate was perfect at -0.1 meters per second, and the runway touchdown alignment was also perfect. The local weather conditions remained the same, with a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius and a wind speed of 2 knots at 258 degrees, resulting in a crosswind of 1 knot and a headwind of 1 knot.
The total landing distance was 654 meters, which accounted for 36% of the runway. The runway rollout alignment was perfect, indicating a smooth and controlled descent. The total flight distance was 7 nautical miles, and the flight took 5 minutes to complete, using 2 kilograms of fuel in the process.
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