I Fly: Firstly, I can't see how my post contradicted what 4dogs posted, but then if I could see that I obviously wouldn't have said what I did, would I ?
My main point with CFI's post was that whilst consistency is important, it must also be a
correct explanation of what happens. i.e. the technique remains correct under all circumstances (or at least the vast majority of them). This should be a prime requirement for all instruction, given the nature of people that we tend to remember
best that which we learnt
first.
Anyhow, I teach descending in the following manners:
Cruise Descent: Reduce the power to the cruise descent setting (lead with power), select the cruise descent attitude, hold (or check) everything to let the aircraft stabilise and then trim. Adjust the power to control the RoD, attitude to control the IAS.
Glide: Close the throttle (rebalancing with rudder as you do so). Use the elevators to select the best glide attitude (usually very close to the straight and level attitude at normal cruise speeds), hold and trim. The speed should settle fairly close to the published best glide speed, but will automatically compensate for the effects of a reduced gross weight or configuration changes. It's an AoA after all.... and a knot or so of inaccuracy doesn't matter a lot in a typical lighty. If the speed is waaaay off, check and adjust the attitude if required, and confirm the config. is correct.
Approach: Select an aiming point on the runway. Concentrate on keeping the aircraft on a constant approach down do the aiming point. If you are tracking directly for the aiming point then it shall remain constant and everything else shall appear to "radiate" out away from it (A bit like in the Windows "flying through space" screen save - the center dot remains steady and the others rush away from the middle). Control your flightpath with attitude (pitch for glideslope, bank for alignment) and control your speed with power. I explain it as the "Point and Power" technique - keep the aircraft pointing at the aiming point and control speed with power. Obviously you still need to refer to the runway aspect for approach angle, but I find the students pick it up quickly with no confusion and can use it with authority to control their approach angle.
The reason I switch to Att=Flight path, Pwr=IAS for the final appraoch is that it is (IMO) a more accurate way of flying finals, it works equally well in all aeroplanes and because your flightpath along finals is to a definate aiming point, not to acheive a given set of numbers on the instruments (this was described by 4 dogs as a constrained flight path).
I'd like to make the following observations also. The
Day VFR Syllabus in sections 5.3 and 5.6 describes basically what I have outlined above for descending and approaches. Note however that it says:
Nose Attitude and Power is selected to maintain cruise descent IAS (+/- 10 KIAS +/- 150 fpm of nominated RoD)
and...
Coordinated use of power and nose attitude are applied to control approach path angle and speed
It doesn't say specifically
how to do it, just what should be done. Really this discussion is about the best way of describing to a student how we perform the manoeuvers, whereas we all use a combination of the 2 techniques to acheive the desired flightpath.
I hope the explanations above are sufficient, and if I am misinterpreting or contradicting anything 4dogs posted please let me know, willing to learn also
