Tha' what?

Hi Chaps,

I was talking to the skipper about big jets rate of descent and he told me that most SOP's are to keep RoD below 1000 fpm!

With the medium size bizjet that I fly we usually work out top of drop using 3 x change in level i.e FL300 = 90 miles, which gives us on average 250 KIAS and 2000 fpm descent.

Any big jet guys care to comment on descent rates because I may be getting to the stage where I may need to know the answer, if you know what I mean!

Tha' What?

buttline

He means ROD after the Final Approach Fix, not from TOD (more likely to be 2-3000 fpm at that point.

Decent rate after FAF worked out roughly by groundspeed times 5 (or, easier, add a zero to your GS and divide by 2)

Eg.. G/S = 140kts

1400 / 2 = 700 fpm to maintain a 3 degree glideslope.