3. Calculating Top of Descent
Here’s a tip if you’ve ever wondered when you should start your descent to your arrival airport (assuming you don’t have an FMS with top-of-descent calculation capability). A quick and easyway to figure it out is to start with your altitude above field elevation and multiply that number by three. This will give you the approximate distance in nautical miles from the airport to start a 500-foot-per-minute descent in the typical light general aviation airplane and reach pattern altitude.
Read the full Calculating Top of Descent tip here.
All Comments
It's good to see an article slanted toward non pilots. What better way to woo new members into our midst? Too much of our media "preaches to the choir".
Haze can kill you as fast as clouds. It was haze that obscured the lights on the shoreline and caused the spatial disorientation that killed JFK, Jr..
This Flying Tips is a very good idea. We used to hang out at the small local airports and exchange flying stories, this is not done anymore.
I think you should pursue this old time tradition with hardcopy, covering early pilot training. The small local airport will teach you how to fly and recover from unusual attitudes.
I usually did quite well in the hooded cabin, but in the clouds it is a different matter. While IR is off course great advantage it does not help much to land in poor visibility on the grass airfield.
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