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 IFR simulator challenge designed to practice "anvil descents," which are rapid, high-speed descents often required due to excessive altitude, high groundspeed from tailwinds, or the need to quickly exit hazardous conditions like icing.
The challenge involves two distinct instrument approaches, emphasizing the importance of precise Top of Descent (TOD) planning, effective energy management, and utilizing cockpit tools like GPS time-to-waypoint and VNAV for accurate execution.
Key takeaways for pilots include anticipating significant re-trimming after rapid descents, negotiating alternate missed approach instructions with ATC to avoid hazards, and understanding the implications of high descent rates for approach stabilization and landing.

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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.