by HarvesteR » Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:57 am
i assume that by 'jets' you mean the 737 or bigger... well, these planes are big and heavy... it's kinda like stopping a train when compared to the little props... you can't rely on drag to hold it back if you're also throwing their noses down onto the ground and plummeting towards earth
everything on these planes must be SLOW... descend slowly, gradually lose airspeed, and slowly turn to line up the runway
of course, when things go THAT slow, the airport is getting mighty big in the window there, so that's why you gotta plan ahead... WAY ahead
the one thing that helped me the most, and i think will do you good, is to learn and use the rule of three... i think your problem slowing down is directly related to descending too steeply and picking up more speed than you can lose while you descend
the rule of three is very simple... it's simply a guideline for a proper descent. it means that the aircraft must travel 3 miles forward to lose 1000 feet of altitude
i'm not too sure of the correct speeds for each kind of aircraft, but i generally pull this off at a speed of 250kts for anything larger than a 737, and it works well
so, what does this mean practically?
it works like this: if you're flying at 30000ft, and want to know when to start descending, discard the last 3 zeros (you get 30) and multiply that by 3.
Last edited by
HarvesteR on Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

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