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MY FS FLIGHTS
Flight Score
Shorten the long landing
Ground effect becomes significant below about one wingspan of height. A Cessna 172, with a 36 ft span, enters ground effect at flare height - the float it feels in the hold-off is ground effect arriving on cue. An A320, with a span around 117 ft, has been in ground effect since before the threshold and there is no sudden cushion to feel, only a gradual reduction in induced drag that lengthens any float you allow.
Read more in Flare TimingStart to finish · 10 stages, 9 in the score
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From brake release to the end of the climb, against time, then the takeoff point by point.
Lifted off at 91 kt with 9.7° 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 46 ft.
Reached 35 ft with 4,337 ft of runway left.
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 6,101 ft runway.
Rolled from 169 ft in, drifted right of the centreline, 18 ft at the widest, and lifted off 18 ft right, in 12 kn of crosswind from the right. Airborne 17 % 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.
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, 1 nm out
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 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.
Rough: the G force varied more than a smooth turn and leg would.
The metric that matters across a circuit session is scatter, not score. Five landings at 180 to 220 fpm is better flying than one 90 fpm greaser sitting among four 400 fpm arrivals, because consistency is what professional flight-data monitoring actually looks for, and consistency only exists across many flights.
Read more in Pattern WorkLost marks: scored 0.
Late: turned base with the threshold 27° 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 WorkThe final from 4 nm.
Profile height against the 3° glideslope, with its 1° band in green.
High from 0.8 nm, where the final began, to 0.3 nm (up to 260 ft over), then back on it to the threshold.
Your height above the runway against the distance still to go. The glideslope is the steady descent path to the aiming point, 1,000 ft 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 4× larger than distances along the final.
Joined 90 ft left of the centreline at 0.8 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.
Over the threshold
Touchdown
9 kt across from the right, which takes about 8° of crab to hold the centreline at 64 kt. Touched down with 2° of it still on, 10° of bank.
Wind 320° at 14 kt · 9 kt head · 9 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.
Side view — the last 5,000 ft of the approach.
Crossed the threshold at 26 ft, 24 ft below the 50 ft target. Touched down 307 ft in, 693 ft short of the ideal 1,000 ft.
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 5,000 ft across. The dashed line is the ideal, 50 ft over the threshold and down 1,000 ft 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 grew from 300 fpm at 24 ft to 540 fpm at touchdown. The nose came up 5.2° 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 5,000 ft of the 6,101 ft runway, to the same scale as the side view.
Touched down 8 ft right of the centreline.
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 307 ft touchdown sits inside the full-score zone. The arrival was smooth.
The rest of the report
The Horten Ho229 took off from runway 28 at EGNH Blackpool International Airport, rolling down the runway for a distance of 930 feet, which accounted for 15% of the runway's length. The aircraft lifted off at a speed of 91 knots, and the local weather conditions at the time of takeoff were characterized by a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit and a wind speed of 22 knots from a direction of 319 degrees. The crosswind component was 15 knots, while the headwind component was also 15 knots.
After takeoff, the aircraft entered a right-hand pattern, completing the entry turn in less than 1 nautical mile in 40 seconds. The subsequent crosswind turn was also completed in less than 1 nautical mile, but in a much shorter time of 3 seconds. The aircraft then proceeded to the downwind turn, covering a distance of 3 nautical miles at an angle of 76.0 degrees to the runway. The base leg turn was shorter, covering a distance of 1 nautical mile at an angle of 27.2 degrees to the runway.
The final approach to runway 28 was made from the east, with the aircraft heading 277.0 degrees at an altitude of 231 feet above ground level (agl) and a distance of 0 nautical miles from the runway. The landing was successful, with the aircraft touching down on the runway at a speed of 64 knots and a distance of 305 feet. The touchdown rate was very hard, at -538 feet per minute, but the runway touchdown alignment was very good.
The local weather conditions at the time of landing were similar to those at the time of takeoff, with a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit and a wind speed of 14 knots from a direction of 320 degrees. The crosswind component was 10 knots, while the headwind component was 9 knots. The total flight distance was 3 nautical miles, and the flight duration was 3 minutes. The aircraft used 45 pounds of fuel during the flight.
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