Regarding these quotes...
Originally Posted by Hurt, AfNA, p27
Note that for the conditions of steady flight, each airspeed requires a specific angle of attack and lift coefficient. This fact provides a fundamental concept of flying technique: Angle of attack is the primary control of airspeed in steady flight. In the same sense, the throttle controls the output of the powerplant and allows the pilot to control rate of climb and descent at various airspeeds.
The real believers of these concepts are professional instrument pilots, LSO's, and glider pilots.......
I agree. I'm a glider pilot myself and if you want to speed up you pitch down, to slow down you pitch up. Every glider pilot should understand that.
I agree that in the majority of flight "situations" and the majority of aircraft, the concept that speed is controlled by AoA (pitch) and climb/descent controlled by thrust (throttle), will provide the best control and handling of the aircraft. Only in some flight situations is it reversed; one I can think of is slow flight recovery... If you break it down into two separate actions you'll see that if you first pitch forward, you will lose altitude. So by adding thrust first you will prevent altitude loss, and then pitching forward will build airspeed. That is what I teach in those situations. Both actions should happen very close together.
Advocates of pitching down first then adding throttle use the argument that when you pitch forward you are decreasing the AoA (correct), and therefore you decrease induced drag and allow the aircraft to accelerate by adding throttle. To do it this way, you will lose altitude the moment you pitch forward. In slow flight you have not stalled and so stall recovery is not beneficial.
One day when I was playing at being a thick student I put us 10 kts slow over the lead in lights and said "you have control Sir please show me again how you lower the nose to make the speed increase" Of course he slammed the throttle forward, refused to speak to me again and I was given a new instructor.
This is something like the recovery from slow flight. You're on approach and 10 kts slow and you don't want to lose altitude on your recovery. Applying full throttle in this case would be the thing to do.
This is leading to my last point. Although these are treated as two separate inputs that affect two separate outputs, if you change one you have to change the other! If you are at your correct speed on your approach and are descending too fast, if you add throttle to compensate, you will have to pitch up slightly to maintain your speed. (Most aircraft have a couple that will pitch the nose up when thrust is increased so you might not need to adjust pitch much.) Pitch is the fastest/most efficient way to control airspeed in most flight situations. Throttle is the fastest/most efficient way to control altitude in most flight situations. However, pitch still can affect altitude and throttle still can affect speed.
Going back to the glider pilot stuff.... it illustrates it very well because your "thrust" is controlled by moving the stick forward or back and speed is controlled the same way. If you pitch down you increase speed and increase rate of descent. If you pitch up you decrease speed and increase rate of climb. They are tied together so a good glider pilot has a very good understanding of conservation of energy and how to most efficiently use the energy.
On approach to the ship at 1.1 Vs, if you see you are going to be a little short and inch the nose up, you had better match that with a power change or in two seconds you will begin to devellop a dangerous rate of sink due to airspeed loss. Typically there is only 11-15 feet of tail hook to ramp clearance for on glide slope operations so unstabilized flight on approach to the boat is a no-no.
And if you want to decel from 300 knots to 250 knots as you go below 10,000 ft on an approach, you would trim to keep your speed stable and adjust rate of altitude change with your power, wouldn't you?
Each technique has its place depending on what you are doing with the aircraft.
I agree with this.