By this lesson the student flies competent circuits, has been through circuit emergencies, and has flown their first solo and training-area solo. This lesson adds two related "maximum performance" skills — getting the aeroplane off the ground (and over an obstacle) in the shortest distance, and getting it stopped in the shortest distance.
The theory builds from the numbers up: first *what* makes a take-off or landing run long or short, then *how we calculate* the distance required and the wind components, then the *technique* for each, and finally a revision of the engine-failure emergencies that are most relevant when operating from a marginal strip.
Note the CASA caveat we will return to: "short field" is really a misnomer. The performance charts tell you whether a runway is suitable at all — the technique is what you apply when a runway is only *just* suitable.
Open with the student's own experience. By now they have taxied onto plenty of runways. Get them imagining the variables before we name them.
Let the question sit. We want them to volunteer "hot day", "uphill", "soft surface", "tailwind" — the very factors we are about to formalise.
Draw out that *both* take-off and landing distances grow under the same adverse conditions. The day that lengthens your take-off run also lengthens your landing run.
The key mindset shift for this lesson: the runway length is a number you *check against*, not something you hope works out. We never "have a go and see".
FIM Ch 11 / Ch 12 both open with this caveat — make the point explicitly. The decision to go is made on the charts, on the ground, before you ever line up. The handling technique simply realises the performance the charts say is available.
This framing matters: a beautifully flown short-field take-off does not rescue a runway that the charts said was too short.
Roughly 30 minutes of long briefing. The middle two waypoints (Performance Factors, Planning the Numbers) are the underpinning knowledge CASA assesses; the take-off and landing waypoints are the technique; engine-failure revision ties back to circuit emergencies.
Click Direct-To to advance to Performance Factors.
PHAK Ch 11 (Aircraft Performance) is the reference. The four families are a memory hook, not a checklist to drill through — the next slides take the high-impact factors one at a time. The single most important grouping for students to internalise is the density-altitude trio: altitude, temperature, humidity.
PHAK Ch 11: density altitude. This is the factor most often underestimated in fatal "failed to climb / overran" accidents. Emphasise that it hits take-off twice — longer run AND poorer climb to clear the obstacle.
A concrete number for the student's aircraft type belongs in the chart-reading part of the brief; here we keep it conceptual.
AFH Ch 6 / Ch 9 and PHAK Ch 11. The trap to highlight: surface and slope can pull in *opposite* directions for take-off vs landing. A soft uphill strip is bad for take-off; the same strip downhill is bad for landing. Wind usually dominates — which is why we ideally take off and land into wind even if it means accepting an up-slope.
FIM Ch 11: a maximum-angle climb is held until the actual or assumed obstacle is cleared. The link to the next waypoint's VX slide: best ANGLE of climb is the obstacle-clearance speed. Plant that now.
Click Direct-To to advance to Planning the Numbers.
PHAK Ch 11: take-off and landing distance definitions. Students frequently quote the ground roll and forget the screen-height distance, which is the number that actually clears the trees.
TODO image — generate and save as run-vs-distance-profile.png in this lesson's brief-assets dir.
IMAGE PROMPT (for an image generator):
A clean, flat-style instructional aviation diagram in a side-on (profile) view on a light background, restrained blue-and-grey palette, minimal text, no photorealism. Show a horizontal runway as a grey strip along the bottom. TOP HALF: a small light-aircraft silhouette starting at the left edge; a blue dashed line along the ground from the start point to a lift-off point labelled "TAKE-OFF RUN (wheels leave ground)"; then a curved climbing path continuing up to a dashed vertical bar marked "50 ft screen" with a small tree at its base; a longer bracket spanning from the start to directly below the 50 ft screen labelled "TAKE-OFF DISTANCE (to 50 ft)". BOTTOM HALF (mirror concept): an aircraft descending from the upper left over a "50 ft screen" bar with a small tree, touching down, then a shorter blue dashed ground line to a stop; a bracket from below the 50 ft screen to the stop point labelled "LANDING DISTANCE (from 50 ft)", and a shorter inner bracket from touchdown to stop labelled "LANDING RUN (ground roll)". Landscape orientation, generous margins so it reads at slide size.
This is a "read the manual for your type" slide — the exact chart and the order of corrections vary. Keep it generic: the student must be able to work their own aircraft's chart. C2.1 f. requires calculating take-off and landing performance to standard 2.
Reader instruction, not a TODO: have the student bring their aircraft's POH/AFM performance section to the brief and work a real example.
PHAK Ch 11 has the crosswind component chart; the clock rule is the in-the-cockpit approximation. Tie back: a strong crosswind has a *smaller* headwind component, so it lengthens your distance compared with the same wind straight down the strip — a double reason to respect it on a short field.
TODO image — generate and save as wind-component-diagram.png in this lesson's brief-assets dir.
IMAGE PROMPT (for an image generator):
A clean, flat-style instructional aviation diagram, top-down (plan) view, light background, restrained blue-and-grey palette, minimal text, no photorealism. Show a grey runway strip running left-to-right with centreline dashes and a runway-number block at the left threshold. From the upper right, a bold blue arrow labelled "WIND" points down toward the runway at roughly 40 degrees to the runway centreline. Resolve this wind arrow into two thinner component arrows drawn as a right-angle vector triangle: one horizontal arrow along the runway pointing toward the threshold labelled "HEADWIND COMPONENT", and one vertical arrow across the runway labelled "CROSSWIND COMPONENT". Mark the angle between the WIND arrow and the runway centreline with a small arc labelled with the Greek letter theta. Keep labels short and in a simple sans-serif. Landscape orientation, generous margins so it reads at slide size.
Work this on the whiteboard with the student rather than just showing it. Then ask the reverse question: if the crosswind limit is 15 kt, how far off the nose can a 20 kt wind be before we're at the limit? Reinforces the clock rule both directions.
The numbers here are illustrative — encourage the student to redo it with today's actual forecast wind in the pre-flight brief.
C2.1 b. and f. — operational documents and the W&B / performance / fuel calculations are explicitly assessed this lesson. Keep it brief in theory; the actual calculations happen as pre-flight planning. The teaching point is the linkage: a heavier load is a longer runway requirement.
Click Direct-To to advance to Short-field Take-off.
FIM Ch 11 short-field take-off sequence. The "full power against the brakes, check, then release" point lets you confirm the engine is making full power before you commit any runway — important on a marginal strip. Note the loose-surface exception on the next slide.
FIM Ch 11: the gravel caveat is a real exam point. Sequence note: flaps come up AFTER the obstacle is cleared and at a safe speed — raising them early sinks the aeroplane. Connect raising flap too early to the stalling lesson's "flap retraction = sudden lift loss" point.
PHAK Ch 11 / AFH Ch 6. Use the component to show that VX is the slower of the two speeds and gives the steeper path. Emphasise: VX is held only as long as needed to clear the obstacle, because it is a high-drag, low-speed, poor-visibility-over-the-nose condition. The CASA standard for best-angle climb this lesson is level 2.
Reader instruction: confirm your aircraft type's published VX and VY before the flight.
FIM Ch 11: engine failure during the max-angle climb requires "a very positive forward movement of the control column". This is the bridge to the engine-failure-revision waypoint. Reassuring framing: the steep, slow climb can feel unusual — that's expected; precision on the speed is what keeps it safe.
Click Direct-To to advance to Short-field Landing.
FIM Ch 12 short-field landing. The standard (A4.5) is level 3: land at a nominated touchdown point at minimum speed, control balloon and bounce, maintain direction, maximum braking without locking the wheels, stop within the landing distance available.
FIM Ch 12: airspeed controlled with elevator, rate of descent with throttle; full flap; minimal float; judicious braking. The wind-gradient power point is straight from the FIM. Connect "control balloon and bounce" to the earlier landing lessons — the recovery for a balloon is the same, but the margin is smaller here.
FIM Ch 12 miss-landing / go-around: full take-off power, climb speed in the landing configuration first, raise flap in stages, expect large trim changes. This reinforces the go-around already taught in lesson 08 — here the trigger threshold is lower because the margins are smaller. Subject to the same climb-performance limits as the take-off (waypoint 1).
Click Direct-To to advance to Engine-Failure Revision.
A6.1 (manage engine failure - take-off, simulated), standard 2. FIM Ch 11: assume the gliding attitude very quickly owing to the lower climbing speed. The over-arching message: at VX you are closest to the stall, so the nose-down reaction must be faster and more positive than from a normal climb.
A6.2 (manage engine failure in the circuit area, simulated), standard 2. This ties directly to the glide-approach skill from lessons 08–09. NTS focus: managing the undesired aeroplane state, using checklists/SOPs, and clear communication under a non-normal situation — the HF & NTS items CASA lists for this lesson.
Click Direct-To to advance to the recap.
Each question uses a Bloom's action verb with a concrete anchor — the student should be able to answer all six before flying.