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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Use small, coordinated rudder and aileron inputs to hold your assigned climb heading as soon as drift begins.
What happened: During the second climb segment, you let the aircraft drift off the assigned heading.
Watch for: Heading indicator: steady on the assigned climb heading
Arrival
Make one smooth continuous pitch input through the flare rather than chasing the runway with the elevator.
What happened: The flare was pumped, with pitch reversing direction several times on the way down instead of one smooth input.
Watch for: Watch the pitch attitude trend through the flare, aiming for a single steady rise through 9.8° with no reversals.
See Arrival Landing
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 · 23 stages, 21 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 76 kt, 3 kt below the 79 kt target, and lifted off at 79 kt 1.3 s later, the nose coming up at 3.5° a second. Climb 3 averaged 87 kt, 7 kt under its 94 kt target.
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 shaded stretch is Climb 3, the part of the climb scored on holding the climb speed.
The takeoff, point by point
Side view from the start of the roll to the end of Climb 3 at 664 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 450 m of runway left; gear up at 9 ft, inside the 400 ft that gets full marks; then climbing at 1,090 fpm on average to 664 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 gear-up ring is coloured by its mark. The shaded stretch is Climb 3, scored on its average speed against the target.
Plan view the roll down the 1,149 m runway.
Rolled from 44 m in, drifted 4.1 m left of the centreline and was back on it to lift off, in 7 kn of crosswind from the left. Airborne 38 % 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.
Two stabilised approach gates, each with seven checks, where the approach path is 1,000 ft and 500 ft above the runway. They are the approach's score: the checks passed out of the checks that ran.
When the approach was stable
Not every check held at once from 1.0 nm to the threshold.
Each line is one of the gate checks, run along the whole final rather than only at the gates: green where it would have passed, amber where it would not. The glideslope, centreline and speed lines use the bands in the charts beside this card. The sink rate is allowed what the glideslope needs at your ground speed plus 600 fpm, the wings 10° of bank, and the gear and flap are read from when you moved the levers. The bottom line is green where every check held at once, ignoring blips shorter than 0.2 nm, and the sentence above it says from where it held to the threshold. A ring is a stabilisation gate, where the checks in the table were taken.
The final from 4 nm, with the stabilisation gates on it.
Profile height against the 3.5° glideslope, with its 2° band in green.
Inside the glideslope band from 4 nm to the threshold, never more than 70 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: 3.5° here, which is about 370 ft for every nautical mile out, crossing the threshold at about 60 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. A ring is a stabilisation gate: green when every check there passed, amber with the failed checks named beside it.
Plan distance off the extended centreline, your left at the top, with the 1° band. Sideways distances are drawn 4× larger than distances along the final.
Inside the 1° band from 4 nm to 1.0 nm, then drifted 48 m right between 1.0 and 0.2 nm, then inside the band from 0.2 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 40 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 24 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Inside the speed band all the way, between +2 kt and +20 kt on the approach speed of 80 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
The flare mostly held the target profile. The flare was pumped rather than held: pitch changed direction 7 times on the way down. Touchdown was 411 m past the threshold. One smooth continuous input - chasing the runway with the elevator makes the next correction bigger, not smaller.
5 kt across from the left, which takes about 5° of crab to hold the centreline at 58 kt. Touched down with the nose 9° into wind, wings level.
Wind 240° at 15 kt · 13 kt head · 5 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 48 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 12 s, an average deceleration of 0.08 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 1,149 m of the approach.
Began the flare at 33 ft, 199 m before the threshold; crossed the threshold at 16 ft, 34 ft below the 50 ft target; ballooned 5 ft from 1 ft. Touched down 411 m in, 106 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 1,149 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.
From the flare the descent stopped and turned into a climb of 280 fpm before coming down at 90 fpm to touch. The nose came up 9.6° 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 1,149 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 3.1 m right of the centreline, and stayed about there down the rollout, 4.7 m left at the widest.
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 411 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The Diamond DA42 Twin Star taxied onto runway 27 at EGBJ Gloucestershire Airport and executed a departure roll of 446 m, representing 39 % of the runway length; liftoff was achieved at 80 kt. Ambient conditions were 22 °C with a wind of 11 kt from 220°, providing an 8 kt headwind component and an 8 kt cross-wind component.
After rotation, the aircraft commenced its first climb overhead the airport, ascending from 776 ft asl to 7 802 ft asl - a gain of 7 026 ft - in 6 minutes while covering 8 nm.
The initial cruise segment was flown over Berkeley, lasting 8 minutes and extending the flight by 23 nm.
A descent began 1 mile north-east of Frampton on Severn, dropping from 7 998 ft asl to 5 969 ft asl - a loss of 2 029 ft - in 3 minutes and traversing 7 nm.
The aircraft then level-cruised over Ashton Keynes for 3 minutes, adding 8 nm to the track.
A second descent started over EGTK Oxford (Kidlington) Airport, reducing altitude from 6 002 ft asl to 3 884 ft asl - a decrease of 2 118 ft - in 3 minutes while covering 8 nm.
Subsequent cruise over a point 1 mile north of Lechlade continued for 14 minutes and spanned 33 nm.
The next descent segment was again over EGTK Oxford Airport, descending from 3 706 ft asl to 1 725 ft asl - a loss of 1 980 ft - in 3 minutes and covering 7 nm.
A short cruise over Duns Tew lasted 3 minutes and added 7 nm.
Descent over Steeple Aston reduced altitude from 1 709 ft asl to 1 062 ft asl - a loss of 647 ft - in 2 minutes, covering 2 nm.
The aircraft then level-cruised over Tackley for 2 minutes, gaining a further 2 nm.
A second climb began over EGTK Oxford Airport, climbing from 1 067 ft asl to 2 952 ft asl - an increase of 1 885 ft - in 5 minutes and covering 6 nm.
Cruise over Stonesfield followed for 3 minutes, adding 5 nm.
Descent 1 mile north-west of Ascott under Wychwood lowered the aircraft from 3 042 ft asl to 2 564 ft asl - a loss of 478 ft - in 2 minutes and covering 3 nm.
The final cruise segment was flown 1 mile south-west of Bledington, lasting 8 minutes and covering 14 nm.
During final approach to runway 27 at EGBJ, the aircraft approached from the east on a heading of 262.0° at 4 nm and 1 439 ft agl.
Landing on runway 27, which is 1 149 m long, was performed with a threshold speed of 82 kt. Touchdown occurred 408 m down the runway at 57 kt, with a vertical speed of minus 110 fpm and a lateral deviation of 3.4 m from the centreline. Weather at the time was 21 °C with a wind of 15 kt from 265°, giving a 15 kt headwind and no cross-wind. The total landing distance recorded was 620 m, representing 54 % of the runway, and rollout alignment was described as very good.
Overall, the flight covered 131 nm, required 66 minutes of elapsed time, and consumed 29 kg of fuel.
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