You are correct. It was what I was trying to explain - poorly. Pitch + Power = Performance.

On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 8:12:43 AM UTC-7, kirk.stant wrote:
On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 4:28:54 PM UTC+2, Karl Kunz wrote:



If you don't care how fast you are coming down yes you can control the airspeed with pitch. If you are trying to maintain a fixed glide angle (3 degrees for most airliner approaches) you will have to add power. IF the were maintaining the glide path with insufficient power there airspeed would have continued to decay all the way down final approach.



Huh? AOA controls airspeed, even in airliners - you fly a constant AOA for the desired approach speed, with power varying to maintain glidepath: going low, you add power; high, you pull off a bit.



And sure, you can gain or lose a few feet by pushing or pulling, but soon you will have to add or remove power to compensate for the change in airspeed, and now you are destabilized.



Kirk

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