Events
Events
Events
Events
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.
The rudder input is a changing profile through the roll rather than one that is held. So the demand on your right foot starts large at power application, eases as speed builds and the rudder gains authority, then jumps again at rotation.
Read more in Improve Your Take-OffsStart to finish · 14 stages, 13 in the score
Events
Events
Events
Events
From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Rotated at 61 kt, on the 62 kt target, and lifted off at 65 kt 0.9 s later, the nose coming up at 2.1° 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 374 ft. The distance scale changes past the runway end.
Reached 35 ft with 38 m of runway left; then climbing at 860 fpm on average to 374 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 612 m runway.
Rolled from 342 m in, never more than 1 m off the centreline. Airborne 65 % 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 nm out at 102 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.
High on downwind: 1,178 ft against 1,000 ft, 178 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 0.9 nm, where the final began, to the threshold, never more than 220 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 0.9 nm, never more than 191 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.
Speed against the approach speed. The green band runs from 5 kt slow to 31 kt fast at the 1,000 ft gate, closing to 19 at 500 ft and 10 at the threshold.
Fast from 0.9 nm, where the final began, to 0.4 nm (up to +27 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 flare wandered off the target profile. The aircraft was flown onto the runway - pitch changed 3.2° and the descent was barely arrested. Touchdown was 147 m past the threshold. Start the flare with progressive back pressure rather than one pull, and keep it coming.
No crosswind: nothing to correct for. Touched down with the nose 2° left of the track, wings level.
Wind 270° at 1 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 61 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 10 s, an average deceleration of 0.18 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 612 m of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 26 ft, 24 ft below the 50 ft target; began the flare at 15 ft. Touched down 147 m in, 158 m short of 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 612 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 400 fpm at the flare to 290 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 3.0° 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 612 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down on the centreline, and stayed within 2.2 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 147 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The 291 fpm arrival was firm.
The rest of the report
The Cessna 172 taxied to runway 28L at EGCJ Sherburn-In-Elmet Airfield and commenced the departure roll. The aircraft used a takeoff distance of 423 m, representing 69 % of the runway, and achieved liftoff at 65 kt. Ambient conditions were 15 °C with a wind of 1 kt from 269°, resulting in a headwind component of 1 kt and no crosswind.
A left-hand pattern entry was executed from runway 28L, covering less than 1 nm in 11 seconds.
The aircraft then proceeded on the left-hand pattern crosswind leg, again covering less than 1 nm, this time in 29 seconds.
During the pattern downwind turn the aircraft flew a 1 nm arc with an angle to the runway of 68.4°.
The downwind leg itself measured 1 nm and was completed in 50 seconds.
A base-leg turn followed, with a 1 nm turn and an angle to the runway of 36.2°.
The base leg was flown for less than 1 nm in 19 seconds.
The final turn to the runway was also less than 1 nm and required 19 seconds.
On final approach to runway 28L the aircraft descended from 521 ft agl to 37 ft agl in 40 seconds and met the stabilisation gates.
Touchdown occurred on runway 28L, whose length is 612 m; the threshold speed was 61 kt. The aircraft touched down 144 m from the threshold at 55 kt, with a touchdown rate of minus 292 fpm and perfect runway-touchdown alignment. Weather remained 15 °C, wind 1 kt from 269°, with zero crosswind and a 1 kt headwind.
The rollout covered a total landing distance of 342 m, equivalent to 56 % of the runway, and the rollout alignment was perfect.
In summary, the flight covered a total distance of 6 nm, taking 4, and consumed 1 kg of fuel.
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