Originally Posted by
tubby linton
Watch the film Out of the Clouds and you can see James Roberston Justice fly a GCA radar talkdown in a Strat. I read the Prestwick crash report I notice that the glideslope angle was 3 1/2 degrees which is quite steep. The Strat approached in a nose down attitude and like the aircraft of the day full flap was extended once going visual. I flew Dart Herald and doing this involved a very positive forward push to stop the aircraft going back in the gloom when Land flap was selected. A Strat often landed nosewheel first and a positive rotation in the flare would have led to a stall. With the limited lighting and the previous history of the crew duty I find it hard to blame the crew.
I remember listening to a Navajo flying a PAR into Bedford and the two radar approaches are very different with much more guidance in the PAR.
The common glidepath for instrument approaches is 3 deg but some airfields can and do notify differences to this depending on the procedure and the terrain clearance; the CAA and ICAO both consider anything between 2.5 deg and 3.5 deg.to be normal. I've 'talked down' literally hundreds of flights with a 3.5 deg GP both for SRAs and PARs and Northolt similalrly has a 3.5 deg GP although both of these airfields now have ILS.
Technques vary with all types, for instance the BAC 1-11 would use flaps to initiate descent when intercepting the glidepath.