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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
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.
Trim is the hidden variable. In trim, the flare is a small refinement to an aircraft already in equilibrium, a couple of millimetres of stick. Out of trim, you're holding a constant force all the way down final, and the flare becomes a large, badly judged movement stacked on top of a load you're already carrying. A striking proportion of "I can't judge the flare" complaints are trim complaints wearing a disguise. If you're holding pressure at 500 feet, fix that before you practise anything else.
Read more in How to Land a Plane Smoothly in Microsoft Flight SimulatorStart to finish · 14 stages, 12 in the score
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Taxi out
The roll
Rotated early, and slowly
The nose came up at 132 kt, 12 kt before the 144 kt rotate speed, and rose at 1.2° a second, slower than the 2 to 3 airliners use.
The nose started up before the rotate speed and then came up slowly, as if easing it off early. Wait for the rotate speed, then make one steady pull at the normal rate for this aircraft.
Liftoff and climb
Plan view the roll down the 3,671 m runway.
Rolled from 67 m in, drifted left of the centreline, 8.2 m at the widest, and lifted off 8.4 m left, in 17 kn of crosswind from the right. Airborne 29 % 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.
Side view from the start of the roll to 334 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 2,235 m of runway left; then climbing at 1,970 fpm on average to 334 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 dark stretch of the roll is the run with the nose up and the wheels still on, with its length and time under the runway.
Speed and pitch from brake release to the end of the climb, against time.
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 grey band is the run between the nose coming up and the wheels leaving the runway. The figures at liftoff are the pitch then and how fast the nose came up, in degrees a second. The rotation detail below draws the rotation against the rates for this aircraft and its tail-strike pitch, where the slope reads properly. The grey dashed line across the pitch is the attitude held from 35 ft to the end: a nose held steady is a climb speed that holds, and the airspeed trace sits directly above it to compare.
Rotation detail the pitch over the seconds from rotation to 35 ft, where the slope reads properly.
The pitch over the seconds from the nose starting to come up to 35 ft, stretched so the slope reads properly. The green dot is where the nose started up, the grey band runs to the wheels leaving, and the figures at liftoff are the pitch then and how fast the nose came up. The two dashed green lines rising from the rotation point are 2 to 3° a second, the rates airliners are rotated at: a trace steeper than both is a faster rotation, one shallower than both a slower one. The red dashed line is 12.1°, the pitch at which this aircraft's tail touches the runway with the wheels still on it, drawn from rotation to liftoff only: once the wheels leave, every foot climbed adds tail clearance.
Left-hand, 1,500 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, 1.8 nm out at 175 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, 1,500 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.
Off heading: 7° from the leg's heading on average.
Spacing cues are relative to your eyepoint, so two simmers with different FOV settings following the same wingtip cue fly patterns half a mile different in width, and a wide FOV compresses depth so the runway on base looks further away than it is, biasing you towards a late turn. Pick a camera position and FOV, save it, and never change it, because every judgement you calibrate is calibrated to that picture.
Read more in Pattern WorkOff heading: 8° 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 1° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 4 nm to the threshold, never more than 280 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, 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 772 m left of the centreline, then inside it from 0.9 to 0.4 nm, then 26 m left of it from 0.4 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 37 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 22 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Inside the speed band all the way, between −4 kt and +9 kt on the approach speed of 148 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
The flare strayed well off the target profile
The aircraft was flown onto the runway - pitch changed 1.7° and the descent was barely arrested. Touchdown was 269 m past the threshold. Start the flare with progressive back pressure rather than one pull, and keep it coming.
Touchdown
Side view — the last 1,524 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 48 ft, close to the 50 ft target; began the flare at 12 ft. Touched down 269 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 1,524 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 stayed between 620 fpm and 690 fpm from the flare to the runway. The nose came up 1.6° on the way down. Into the flare at 150 kt, on the 148 kt approach speed, and 146 kt at touchdown.
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 3,671 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 6.1 m left of the centreline. 12 kt across from the right, which takes about 5° of crab to hold the centreline at 146 kt. Touched down straight - the crab taken out before the wheels touched, wings level.
Wind 300° at 17 kt · 11 kt head · 12 kt across
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 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. The sentence gives the nose against the direction you were actually moving as the wheels touched, and the steepest bank as they touched, the figure the touchdown's Bank tile marks. The rest of it is shown for reading, not marked.
The 269 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The 1.76 G arrival bounced.
The rest of the report
The Boeing 747-8 taxied from the parking area to runway 23L at NZAA Auckland International Airport in less than 1 minute, covering less than 1 nm.
During the departure roll on runway 23L, the aircraft accelerated over a takeoff distance of 1,093 m, representing 30 % of the runway length, and lifted off at 162 kt. Ambient conditions were 20 °C with a wind of 23 kt from 300°, including a 17 kt cross-wind component and a 15 kt head-wind component.
Climb commenced immediately after liftoff, beginning overhead NZAA and rising from 940 ft asl to 1,626 ft asl, an increase of 687 ft achieved in less than 1 minute while covering less than 1 nm.
Level cruise was established 1 mile southwest of NZAA, persisting for 6 minutes and encompassing a distance of 15 nm.
The final approach to runway 23L was executed from the east, with the aircraft aligned on a heading of 256.0° at 3 nm and 787 ft agl.
Landing on runway 23L, which measures 3,671 m, was performed with a threshold speed of 153 kt. Touchdown occurred 270 m down the runway at 146 kt, with a heavy touchdown rate of minus 694 fpm and a lateral deviation of 8.3 m from the centreline. Weather at the time was 20 °C with a wind of 17 kt from 300°, a 13 kt cross-wind component and an 11 kt head-wind component.
In total, the flight covered 20 nm, taking 7 minutes, and consumed 49,409 kg of fuel.
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