FMS and winds
Of course .. as we only had a rough idea from the forecast which, itself was a rough idea .. ie fantasyland. Easiest real time option was to do it using the Mk1 grey matter all the way down and vary the speed a few knots here and there as necessary to keep bracketing the desired gradient profile .. and a lot of us flew the entire descent hand flown to maintain the scan rate skills .. FD either off or ignored. Much less conservative overall due to the higher data sampling rate than programming the box in cruise with comparatively significant conservatism.
Sometimes, just for fun, we might plug in some forecast winds. That just confused the issue further and we would still just ignore the box's prognostications.
The SOPs are built with a margin, and you never get to learn where the hard limit is because you never get to experience it.
And that's fine, if necessarily conservative and, to some extent, expensive.
couldn't make it to stable approach gate at 1000 and went around
Three observations -
(a) that sort of experience is indicative of stuffing the nose down and going along for the ride. The pilot has to be the boss and monitor all the way down, correcting deviations from plan as appropriate. If it isn't going to work, it becomes pretty obvious a long ways earlier than the final gate.
(b) alternatively, discuss with other pilots, especially those more experienced, try some tests in sim playtime, and revise one's own knowledge. Should the situation arise again, one should be able to perform much better than first time around.
(c) a miss is not a source of embarrassment .. it merely acknowledges that, for whatever reason, the history didn't match the plan to an extent that prudence dictated an escape option. It's only a concern if a pilot continually can't get things right .. the odd miss is a tick in the pass box.
-> will never start an approach with that much energy again
I believe the technical term for that is "learning" ?
made it to to stable approach gate at 1000 sweatting all over -> could do it again, but nothing more
.. but VERY satisfying. The difficult bit was carrying off the "doesn't everyone do it that way" nonchalance ... maybe, next time, one gives oneself an extra mile's worth of fat to reduce the workload ?