"David Brooks" writes:

Well, that was a given in the theoretical scenario. The smooth descent is
calculated to arrive at the last stepdown altitude well before its fix (a
couple of miles at least), not to hit it exactly. I'm not trying to avoid
that last level-off.

Instead of imagining a ceiling right at MDA (or 50 feet above, so that
you have a chance of seeing the runway), let's take a more realistic
example, at least for where I live. MDA is 500 ft AGL and the ceiling
is 800 ft AGL with 1.5 SM visibility (fluctuating). You're not going
to see the runway at the FAF, five six miles back. Do you descend
fast to MDA and then level out for a few miles?


All the best,


David