Haven't had much of a chance to look in lately (all these tours
).
A few observations:
As far as I'm concerned, 'Descend' means 'Now' unless stated otherwise. So I won't be querying it automatically (in the same way that I don't habitually ask if standard speeds apply, see earlier thread!).
However, if it is a route that I am very familiar with, and experience suggests that the clearance is always "When Ready" then I
will query it unless (a) Controller workload is obviously high or (b) I'm planning on descend pretty soon anyway.
Almost invariably, when I've asked, the response has been "When ready".
Thinking about it, I guess the quickest way to query is to modify the readback.
Instead of saying:
"Descend FL XX, - is that now or at our discretion?"
or just "Descend FL XX" and wondering,
How about "Descend now FL XX"
That way it only adds one short word to the readback. In effect the crew would be saying "We think you mean now, and are acting on that basis, if you don't then let us know."
The controller can ignore the extra word if workload does not permit, but at the same time it is a small prompt if the controller intended, but neglected for whatever reason, to say "When Ready".
As far as RODs, then I would try and use as low a rate of descent as possible, i.e. 500 fpm, any time I'm being forced below the ideal profile.
However, airmanship suggests that there is a reason you have asked for the descent. So, in the absence of any qualifiers like "Good rate through FL XX" or "Expedite through FL XX" I use a reasonable rate for the first 1,000 feet and then slacken it off.
On the GVA SIDs, I'm not aware of any reason to refuse to turn once that 7,000 feet condition is met. However, when we used to fly the noise profile reaching 7,000 by PAS wasn't really a problem (since V2+10 to something like 4,700' ???) but now that we accelerate at 1,000 AGL then you seem to arrive at PAS below 7,000' and are therefore constrained. (I'm no performance guru, thats just the way it seems to work out).
CPB