@roulette,
... and I don't like to play "roulette russe".
That is the reason I wanted to emphasize the counterparts of "continuous descent". They are more than one. Once again poor automation had a part in these choices of design philosophy, not only the size and inertia of wide-bodies. You need a high rate of stabilization to realize autoland and have benefit of very low minima, generalized Cat II, Cat III.
RWY 18 in Birmingham,AL is another challenge aswell as many approaches in the middle of hills and mountains.
The last limitation against CFIT is the crew, AFTER GPWS... Dive&drive needs to know at any moment where you are. The different mandatory distances and heights are locked in the pilot's mind. Near of mountains wind may change during approach and with continuous descent method way of thinking you have illusion of ground stability, and you just ignore your real minimal marge, you are descending just like in a simulator with low concern. Only dive&drive way of thinking gives you insurance to be in the protected volume. If we use a distance/height table it is to be able to do a pitch/power correction depending if you are fast or late in your descending path.
Since they built continuous descent approaches they suppressed both the notion of the limits and the table, and sometimes worth : the FAF ! (LFST VOR-DME 05, AIR INTER 20. JAN 1990). But sold aircrafts with such commercial lies.
Freightdogs are used to be asked to land at time in every weather, and to take greater risk (it is a fact) as they have no passengers. The Transport letter LTA given to the crew show that everything has its own insurance. When I was freightdog the total to pay by insurances in case of crash was around 10 times what they would pay with aircraft full of passengers under Warsow/Montreal convention. Freight airlines have no concern with crash risk and costs. So their pilots are alone to protect their own safety, LOCKING in their mind exactly where they cannot go lower and in which hotizontal protection segment they are. That is what is safe in the dive&drive logic. But I know the risk exists to be one step forward in descending, (easy to avoid with good formation) but mean continuous descent is not enough to help if you forget the LIMITS.
Mean continuous descent was built to help automation who are still untrustful in TRANSIENT dynamic.
I do not say more than that when I say dive&drive is safer, as that method gives us more conscious pilots of the ground limits and respect of MDA.
Roulishollandais
Last edited by roulishollandais; 22nd Aug 2013 at 04:56.