Cross Country planning question

[minitour]

haha...in what?? Lear maybe? 90kts groundspeed hmmmm I lose my 3000 ft in 6 minutes and I'm still 21 miles out.

Well there's enough "hot doggin" instructors out here that have shown me some cool stuff...

...like if you're really in a bind, just put it in a slip from 10,500...you'll be down to TPA in no time...the really "bad ass" guys just spin it...they get down the fastest...

Seriously though...thanks for the help guys...I've got a flight in about an hour and I'll work on the descent planning.

-mini

 

[PropsForward]

yeah, sorry. Thinking a 180kt cruise descent at 3nm per minute. You will need to cut by 2/3 instead of 1/2 if your only moving at 1.5nm/min.

 

[Tinstaafl]

Or calculate descent time interval in minutes at a convenient rate eg 500'/min then start the descent that many minutes (+ a few extra for speed reduction) prior to ETA. Saves mucking around with calculating distances from groundspeed.

500'/min is easy because descent time in minutes = 2 x 1000's of feet to descend. 300'/min is OK too. It approximates 3 mins per 1000's of feet to descend, or 10 mins / 3000' descent height.