Events
Events
Events
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Departure
Ease the yoke smoothly to hold a steady one g through the ground roll instead of letting it sag to 0.4 g.
What happened: During the ground roll the g force averaged 0.4 g, well below the smooth steady load expected while tracking the runway.
Watch for: Watch the g meter and hold it steady near one g through the roll.
See Departure Roll
Arrival
Add power on final to keep the approach speed at 66 kt rather than letting it decay before the threshold.
What happened: The aircraft crossed the threshold at 52 kt, 14 kt below the target, and touchdown followed with a firm, high sink rate arrival. Crossing the threshold slow like this usually carries through to a firmer touchdown as the flare runs out of energy.
Watch for: Airspeed indicator: 66 kt at the threshold.
Preparing for a stable approach will give you time to decide on whether to attempt the landing or going around. Too much altitude with a high sink rate will result in carrying too much speed onto the runway. Configuring flaps and the gear late also won't help the speed decay.
Read more in The Stabilised ApproachStart to finish · 12 stages, 10 in the score
Events
Events
Events
Taxi out
The roll
A clean takeoff
Rotated at 65 kt against the 68 kt rotate speed, the nose rising at 1.7° a second, then held 11.6° from 35 ft, within 4.9° top to bottom.
Rotated on speed at a steady rate, and the climb attitude held. This is the takeoff to repeat: the same speed check, the same pull, the same attitude.
Liftoff and climb
Plan view the roll down the 1,146 m runway.
Rolled from 325 m in, drifted left of the centreline, 13 m at the widest, and lifted off 13 m left. Airborne 64 % 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 the end of Climb 3 at 592 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 205 m of runway left; gear up at 85 ft, inside the 400 ft that gets full marks; then climbing at 1,110 fpm on average to 592 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. The gear-up ring is coloured by its mark. The shaded stretch is Climb 3, scored on its average speed against the target.
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 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. The shaded stretch is Climb 3, the part of the climb scored on holding the climb speed.
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.
At the 1,000 ft gate: centreline more than 1° off.
At the 500 ft gate: glideslope more than 2° off the runway's 3°, centreline more than 1° off and speed more than 20 kt above the approach speed of 66 kt.
Sideslipping at the upper gate - wing down, opposite rudder. That is a technique for losing height without gaining speed, so the sink rate, the glideslope and wings level are not asked there: they are what the slip is for. The other checks are marked as usual.
The approach, gate by gate
Over the threshold
The flare wandered off the target profile
Pitch was 3.1° at touchdown, at or below this aircraft's ground attitude, so the nosewheel met the runway with the main wheels or before them. Touchdown was 271 m past the threshold. Keep raising the nose through the flare so the main wheels touch first.
Touchdown
Rollout
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 20 ft. Touched down 271 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 went from 570 fpm at the flare to 320 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 1.3° on the way down. Into the flare at 50 kt, 16 kt under the 66 kt approach speed, and 46 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 full 1,524 m runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 17 m right of the centreline, and steered back to 7.6 m right by the end of the rollout. Little crosswind (1 kt): nothing to correct for. Touched down with the nose 2° left of the track, 3.8° of bank.
Wind 198° at 2 kt · 1 kt head · 1 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 271 m touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The 323 fpm arrival was firm.
The stop — touchdown to taxi speed.
From 54 kt at touchdown to taxi speed (30 kt) in 6 s, an average deceleration of 0.24 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.
The rest of the report
The Piper PA-24 Comanche departed from runway 08 at LSGK Saanen Airfield. Take-off used 750 m of runway, 65 % of its length, and rotation occurred at 65 kt. Local weather was 8 °C with wind 3 kt from 180°, a 3 kt crosswind and a 1 kt tailwind.
Initial climb to 1,000 ft agl took 29 seconds, averaging 1,066 fpm and reaching 69 kt at the top of the climb. The aircraft then climbed from 3,791 ft asl to 5,430 ft asl in 1 minute while covering 2 nm, starting overhead Saanen.
Level flight was maintained at 5,600 ft asl for 3 minutes, covering 6 nm, beginning 2 miles north-east of Saanen.
During final approach to runway at Lenk (Canton de Berne, Switzerland) the descent was from 2,110 ft agl to 91 ft agl in 151 seconds. Stabilisation checks at 1,000 ft and 500 ft above the runway were met for gear down, landing flap, sink rate and wings level; they were not met for glideslope, centreline and speed (at one gate).
The final descent to touchdown was from 49 ft agl to 0 ft agl, a loss of 49 ft in 5 seconds. The flare was described as a good landing flare; the aircraft touched down flat with the nosewheel first. Touchdown speed was 46 kt, rated as good, with a firm rate of minus 323 fpm. Touchdown distance was 270 m, also noted as good. Local weather at landing was 7 °C with wind 2 kt from 198°, a 1 kt crosswind and a 1 kt headwind. No bounce occurred on touchdown.
Rollout continued over Lenk at an altitude of 3,345 ft asl and covered a distance of 54 m.
The total flight covered 13 nm, lasted 8 minutes and consumed 5 kg of fuel.
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