Originally Posted by
scotbill
That is completely wrong. You need gradient - not rate of descent.
Hold level to kill the speed using airbrake.
Drop droop, flaps and gear and resume the descent at the lowest approach speed.
A slippery aircraft like e.g the 757 will not decelerate nose down. I used to think it worthwhile to devote some time on the sim course to demonstrating that even being 400' too high at the outer marker with only 20 flap you could rescue the situation by holding level to drop everything and then resuming to be in the slot by 500'
Once in a Vanguard diverting from Heathrow over central London at FL100, Approach said the RVR on what was then 28L had gone to the magic (Cat 1) 600m and if we were interested we would be No 1.
By using the above technique we made it straight in as the first to land that morning.
Both you and
Nightstop are right. Depends how far are you from the airport. You can't slow down flaps, gear down 100miles from field even if you are 4,000ft or above higher.