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Descents
You can descend with the airplane in a level or even nose-up attitude. Remember that if you hold an airplane's pitch attitude constant, thrust—power—determines whether the airplane maintains altitude, climbs, or descends. If the engine produces more thrust than is required to maintain level flight, the airplane climbs. It descends if you reduce power. As a rule of thumb, limit descents in unpressurized airplanes to about 500 ft/min (152 m/min). This rate allows passenger's ears to adjust to pressure changes during the descent. Spend some time with the airplanes in Flight Simulator to familiarize yourself with the performance that you can expect at different power settings and airspeeds. Remember, the lower the power, the greater the rate of descent. Also practice stopping a descent by smoothly adding power. |
Many people
assume that to descend you simply push forward on the control yoke or stick to point the
airplane's nose down. In fact, the pilot must adjust both pitch and power to establish a
stable descent at a constant airspeed.