Originally Posted by
martynemh
From FL350, you'll travel about 85nm. At Vmd (ca 240kt IAS), you'll set off at about 410kt TAS. By FL150, your TAS will have dropped to about 300kt. For tha complete descent your average TAS will decrease from about 7nm per min at TOD, down to 4 nm per min as you reach the Indian Ocean.
You'll do those 85 miles in about 15 mins.
At Vmd.
That is based on a lot of assumptions. Such as a pilot controlling the aircraft descent. Several thousand posts back someone reported testing an uncontrolled engine off descent in the SIM and reported a series of phugoids rather than a controlled descent. If a pilot is assumed then perhaps a dive maintaining speed to provide some controllablility at low level for a minimum wreckage ditching.
Or to put it another way, we are dealing with SWAG, anywhere within maximum glide range of the last 'Ping' position could be the ocean entry point. It could even be under the last ping if 'the pilot' had spiralled down