In order to stay on the glide path for example.
skydriller wrote:
You would be imagining incorrectly then…. Why would you EVER drag in a 3deg approach VFR?
I cant remember the last time I flew anything resembling a 3 deg approach.
To stay on PAPI glide path?
Counter productive to fly 3deg VFR approach to 1500ft runways with trees and obstacles unless you fly really slow speeds and conditions are smooth An ILS path to long runway = “protected”, don’t be a hero flying 3deg approach to non-ILS runways 
It’s only fun when you do a long final at 300ft at 2nm skimming water to land on an island runway 
It may have been mentioned but at least on CPL/IR/TR there is the concept of nominated speeds for the different phases of flight, and these are subject to tolerance limits on check rides +/- 5-10 knots depending, and in certain cases – zero.
Check rides are failed if nominated speeds are not respected.
The poor PA28 in its simpler guises has an approach speed on final of 63KIAS, unfortunately a lot of practitioners try and plant it at 70 or 80 KIAS and wonder why they are either wheelbarrowing, leaving the runway or running out of runway. YouTube can provide examples.
This is a good report on a crew that got behind their SOP nominated speeds.
https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/aaib-investigation-to-boeing-737-86n-i-neot
Flying the POH is one of the nuggets of wisdom I grow fonder of with age.
On an IFR approach, even if asked to keep speed up, it is expected that deceleration will occur at 4D to nominated SOP/POH speeds. Some airlines ask for a decelerating raw ILS on a recurring LPC, other airlines are happy with fully configured at FAF.
What I find hard to understand is why the entire final leg needs to be flown at say 63kt. Why not fly it at say 80kt and reduce speed at the very end? Most of the piston planes involved are not slippery, and slow down pretty fast.
Stabilized doesn’t mean slow, it means smooth and controlled, and adapted to the occasion, plane, field, terrain etc.
I usually only slow down to approach speed after the turn to final. I still have a tendency to end up too high on final, thus often fly the final with idle power to lose altitude. This works well for me in the aircraft I typically fly (PA-28, C172, Aquila 210).
One memorable occurrence was my landing at EDDV on my first flight with a pax: Was at 800ft or so over the threshold, in a C172, then deployed full flaps, power to idle and landed exactly on the “light aircraft touchdown markings”.
Generally I agree with Peter that there’s no need to maintain the same speed on final, in VMC. Though I think it makes sense to set yourself a target speed and reach and maintain that at some point of the final.
Peter wrote:
What I find hard to understand is why the entire final leg needs to be flown at say 63kt. Why not fly it at say 80kt and reduce speed at the very end? Most of the piston planes involved are not slippery, and slow down pretty fast.
This is unrealistic for ab-initio training, unless you want to pad the syllabus out to 100hrs… Peter while you are experienced a pilot, you probably don’t have much experience in flight training. (?) Upto the PPL maintaining a glide path, track and speed simultaneously is usually at the limit of applicants competency, which is demonstrated by how this deteriorates when the student is further loaded.
Many pilots that have lost currency, are not capable of this either, and they fly a faster speed, an then compensate by initiating the landing earlier with an earlier power reduction. That is all well and good if it is intentional and all under pilot control… IMHO many stall and landing mishaps start with excess speed or more correctly poor speed control.
A faster speed is not faster in any case if the brain is behind the plane, as the circuit gets even further extended. 65knots established on base for you typical 152 allows for a nice tight circuit if done correctly. (no problem at all to keep up with tb20 )
The ab-initio phase and shortly after is one of the safest areas of GA so perhaps something is being done right. You can’t pack the points you referring to into an already crowded syllabus. Perhaps what is need an advanced pilot training syllabus, like the CPL
I am not an instructor, of course, and yes I can see it would need more instruction time to train this extra “finesse”.
Ibra wrote:
It’s only fun when you do a long final at 300ft at 2nm skimming water to land on an island runway
Island runways are my most likely to call for as steep an approach as I feel comfortable with, considering the consequences of an engine failure on final if the approach is power on flat. Several of my normal destinations are over water to the threshold, and I do my best to prevent the possibility of having to glide into it. If I’m flying the amphibian, still, as I do not depend upon being able to retract the gear quickly enough to transition to a water landing. I’ll regularly fly a curved final approach is tower permits, to avoid being off shore.
