VyCurve Climb performance & awareness

Approaches, landings & altitude awareness

Departures are only half the story. VyCurve reads the arrival with the same restraint.

The same processed ADS-B tracks that describe a climb also describe the way an aircraft came home. VyCurve's approach score is a plain-language read of how high and how stable each arrival stayed before it needed to descend — and how much of it was flown inside the low-altitude window where an aircraft is most audible over the ground. It is an educational awareness aid for pilots and communities who want to understand and improve approaches. It is not professional acoustic monitoring, not enforcement, and never a verdict on any flight.

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2,500 2,000 1,500 500 Height above ground (ft AGL) — illustrative 1,000 ft AGL Low-altitude window — flown below 1,000 ft AGL Descent captured ≈ 3.1 mi out High shelf held Observed approach Terrain along the route Distance from touchdown (nm) 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Observed approach Below 1,000 ft AGL Terrain

Fig. 1. Illustrative rendering for Fairview Airfield (FAA), a fictional demonstration field. Every figure on this page is synthetic — drawn to show what the read looks like, not what any real airport or aircraft recorded. The shaded window marks altitude, not sound.

The arrival is the part the neighbors hear

A departure climbs away; an arrival comes down over the same houses, often lower and for longer. Reading both — with the same grammar and the same restraint — is what lets a field talk about its whole footprint honestly.

With the neighbors

Overflight concern is often loudest under the final approach. An aggregated picture of how high arrivals actually were, and how much of each was flown low, replaces "it felt low today" with something a community can look at together.

With the pilots

A stabilized, higher-for-longer approach is good airmanship and a quieter neighbor. The score turns that into a private, specific debrief — where the descent was captured, how steady it stayed — not a public ranking.

With the board

Trends in how much of the average approach sits below 1,000 ft AGL give managers a descriptive, methodology-backed way to weigh a preferred-approach note or some outreach — with every limit stated in the same breath.

The approach score, opened up

One 0–100 number, built from five plain components that any pilot will recognize. It rewards staying high and stable over the ground below, then capturing a smooth, continuous descent — and it shows its work, component by component.

Above all else show the data.

Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

The five components

Illustrative
Share of each component's maximum earned High shelf — altitude benefit 86% · max 40 High-shelf stability 78% · max 15 Descent-capture timing 72% · max 20 Stable descent after capture 90% · max 20 Touchdown / data confidence 60% · max 5

Fig. 2. Each bar is a component's share of its own maximum. Green marks the strongest, amber the clearest thing to look at next — the same private debrief a pilot sees, never a public league table.

One arrival, summarized

Illustrative
82 / 100 Approach score · demonstration arrival

A descriptive summary of how this arrival compared to the field's own observed envelope — not a determination that it was quiet, safe, legal, or well-flown.

The headline number always travels with its components and its data confidence, so a single figure is never read on its own. Where the sample is thin or the track is incomplete, the score is capped or withheld and says so.

High shelf — altitude benefit

The largest share of the score. Reward for staying high over the ground below until a descent is genuinely needed — the single biggest lever on how much of an approach is audible over the ground.

High-shelf stability

Reward for a level, un-stepped shelf before the descent begins, rather than a series of step-downs that spread low-altitude flight across more ground.

Descent-capture timing

Whether the sustained descent began in the preferred window — not so early that the aircraft drones in low, not so late that it arrives high and rushed.

Stable descent after capture

A smooth, continuous descent without a late dive or excessive sink — the profile that is easier on the airframe, the passengers, and the neighborhood alike.

Touchdown / data confidence

A small share for a plausible, well-sampled endpoint near the field. When the data cannot support it, this is the first thing the report tells you it could not see.

Always a distribution

Every component is reported as a share of its maximum against the field's own envelope — never a pass/fail, never a ranking of identifiable pilots or aircraft. Masking is on by default here exactly as it is everywhere else.

A higher, shorter window — and a lower, longer one

The same aircraft type can arrive two very different ways. Read side by side, the difference is not a grade — it is a picture of a habit that is easy to see and easy to adjust.

Higher for longer

Illustrative
1,000 ft AGL 0.7 mi 6 nm out Touchdown

Fig. 3. The shelf holds; the descent is captured late and flown steeply. Only 0.7 mi falls inside the window — the calmer footprint over the ground.

Lower for longer

Illustrative
1,000 ft AGL 1.9 mi 6 nm out Touchdown

Fig. 4. An early descent means 1.9 mi below the window — nearly three times as much low flight over the ground. Same runway, same aircraft type; a different habit.

Higher approach — score

88

0.7 mi below 1,000 ft AGL

Lower approach — score

61

1.9 mi below 1,000 ft AGL

Field median window

1.8mi

Across scored approaches

Scored approaches

2,540

One demonstration season

All values are synthetic and illustrative. The score reflects a comparison to this fictional field's own observed envelope; it is not a comparison between pilots and not a measure of sound.

How much of each approach is audible over the ground

Gather every scored arrival and count how far each was flown below 1,000 ft AGL. Most cluster near the field's median; a tail runs longer — and that tail, never any single flight in it, is what a preferred-approach conversation is actually about.

Distance flown below 1,000 ft AGL, across approaches

Illustrative
median 1.8 mi 0 1 2 3 4 Miles flown below 1,000 ft AGL →

Fig. 5. The amber tail — approaches that ran long and low — is a review cue for the areas beneath them, offered with its sample size attached. It is never a finding that any flight in the tail was unsafe, improper, or too loud.

What this is — and emphatically is not

An awareness tool earns trust by stating its limits as plainly as its findings. The approach score ships with all of these, and they travel with every figure it produces.

Not professional acoustic monitoring

There is no microphone and no decibel measurement anywhere in VyCurve. The approach score is a geometry-and-altitude proxy — it reads where an aircraft was, not how loud it sounded on any porch. Sound depends on aircraft type, power setting, wind, temperature, terrain shielding, and background sound, none of which a sound-level meter would ignore and none of which this measures. It is not a substitute for an FAA Part 150 study, a certified sound exposure map, or any DNL/CNEL/INM/AEDT modeling, and it should never be cited as one.

Errors happen — and are stated

Everything here is reconstructed from ADS-B position reports, which carry GPS noise, time offsets, dropped samples, and altitude that must be converted to height above ground using terrain data of finite resolution. A capture point can be misread; a partial track can be misjudged; a touchdown can be estimated. Where the data cannot support a score, VyCurve caps or withholds it and shows the confidence and the flags. Treat every number as an estimate with error, not a measurement.

Illustrative here, and not legal or regulatory anywhere

Every chart, score, and figure on this page is synthetic and illustrative, drawn for Fairview Airfield (FAA), a fictional demonstration field. Nothing here reflects a real airport, aircraft, or pilot. And nothing VyCurve produces — on this page or in a live report — is a regulatory finding, a compliance determination, an accident-investigation input, or a legal instrument. It does not establish fault, safety, or legality for any flight.

What the approach read is for

  • Helping pilots learn and refine stabilized, higher-for-longer approaches.
  • Giving a field a shared, factual picture of how arrivals actually fly.
  • Surfacing long, low stretches as review cues for areas, with sample sizes attached.
  • Attributing variation to profile and conditions before anything else.
  • Turning a single arrival into a private, constructive debrief.

What it is never for

  • Measuring sound, or standing in for a professional acoustic study.
  • Punishing, ranking, or naming identifiable pilots or aircraft.
  • Enforcement, complaint targeting, or fault-finding of any kind.
  • Judging whether a flight was safe, legal, or correctly flown.
  • Being read as anything more than descriptive aggregation.

The point is learning, not punishment

A quieter approach and a well-flown one are usually the same approach. VyCurve exists so pilots, clubs, boards, and neighbors can understand airport movements and improve them together — climbs and landings alike — from the same restrained, observed picture. If a field wants a tool for blame, this is deliberately the wrong one.

See the arrival read on your own field's data

A demo walks through the climb report, the community map, and the approach score together — with the privacy model and every caveat on the table — then, if you like, we point a receiver at your pattern and let your own data make the case.

Request a demo See climbs & the phase gradient →

Demos run about thirty minutes and use demonstration data only.