Going Downhill Fast

Keeping your instrument-flying skills sharp is like high school football. No, not the social activities after the game; we mean the combination of drills and scrimmage. This sim challenge is a bit of both. The scrimmage part is that youll practice in the context of a (nearly) complete flight. The drill part is that flight is focused on one skill: the anvil descent.

jwanwest

Monday, April 10, 2017 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The article presents an instrument flight simulator challenge designed to hone the "anvil descent," a rapid and controlled altitude loss maneuver crucial for instrument flying.
This skill is vital for managing excess altitude or groundspeed, navigating challenging conditions like strong tailwinds or hazardous layers (icing, smoke), and efficiently setting up a stabilized approach.
Mastery requires precise Top of Descent (TOD) calculations, effective energy management (airspeed, vertical speed, configuration), and leveraging navigation tools like GPS/VNAV for situational awareness and execution.

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Keeping your instrument-flying skills sharp is like high school football. No, not the social activities after the game; we mean the combination of drills and scrimmage. This sim challenge is a bit of both. The scrimmage part is that you’ll practice in the context of a (nearly) complete flight. The drill part is that flight is focused on one skill: the anvil descent.

Why Would You Ever?

Sometimes you just have too much altitude, groundspeed, or both. That’s groundspeed, not airspeed, because instrument procedures are built on angles, not rates. An approach leg descending from 3000 to 1000 in five miles is a four-degree descent. You could do that at 100 knots and about 650 fpm, or 200 knots and about 1300 fpm, but it’s still four degrees downhill.