Whenever I try my hand at autoland, it works perfectly, except for the fact that the descent always seems to go to slow, and I never seem to make the proper altitude for landing on time. Is it just poor programing on my part? Patrick Boynton

You probably just need to think about coming down a lot sooner and getting the speed off the clock earlier. The '3:1 rule' is a good basic notion to work off, alternatively, you can simply use '50 miles from the airport' as a good rough guide to when to start down from a typical medium-range jet airliner cruise altitude: http://en.wikipedia...._%28aviation%29 In practical terms, doing that sort of thing allows a more comfortable cabin pressure descent rate, to alleviate the need for your virtual passengers having to suck like crazy on boiled sweets to prevent their ears popping too much! Don't be afraid to throw in a dog leg on your course if you need to, and you can also abort your approach early and swing around for another try as well. Al

Are you using VNAV during the descent? It usually does a very good job of managing speed and altitude during descent.

... you can simply use '50 miles from the airport' as a good rough guide to when to start down from a typical medium-range jet airliner cruise altitude:

I think that must be a typo - 150 miles is more like it.

In the old days of the 737/200 we would use the following rulle. FL320 x 3 = 96 + 10 = 106 miles out. If there was a tale wind we would request early descent & descend in stages, head wind would be fine to use above. FMC did give us T/D but we rarely used it. At lower altitudes ATC would gives us altitudes anyway so it was rarely a problem.

Forgot to mention. 737's are very slippery aircraft & always have been. New pilots coming onto type would take a while to manage speed, particularly if they came from turbo prop aircraft. Normal procedure was to hand fly below 6000ft both in the climb & approach phase & on calm days speed had to be watched carefully. My instructor used to say "get the speed lower than you want & keep it there". This was good advice, hence, why we climb out at 250knts & when coming down 240kts. 230 was the norm for us unless instructed differently by ATC.

In the old days of the 737/200 If there was a tale wind we would request early descent & descend in stages, head wind would be fine to use above. FMC did give us T/D but we rarely used it. At lower altitudes ATC would gives us altitudes anyway so it was rarely a problem.

How times change hey...descend in stages....big no no, nowadays, the game now is throttles to idle and if possible never put them above that until on final.Now it's a clever use of vnav, combined with a large amount of intervention with vs, to help bleed speed but not to ever level off, if you do level off, reduce speed further so as not to apply power, and nag ATC for further descent.

Patrick In my experience with the NGX so far I start before TOD with a tail wind. With a head wind it does a great job.What tends to happen with a tail wind is that from TOD down to around FL200 ish all seems to go well. The lower you get you may find that speed creeps up & you will need to use vertical speed adjustments & or speed brake to maintain the profile. This happens in the real aircraft too especially if winds are different from those programed into the FMC.One other thing. If I can give an example. London Gatwick EGKK is about 200 above sea level. The ILS chart gives 2000ft for the appraoch altitude to runways 26L & 08R. If you set in the CDU an approach without a STAR as I do sometimes say 15miles out you will see in the CDU an altitude of around 4800ft. So if I'm doing this kind of approach I change that to 2000ft. This sets the TOD a little earlier along the route & should get you on the numbers. In real life winds are rarely the same as predicted. Tower controller will give you a reading on finals but even then the wind is never a constant speed.or direction.JamesHow right you are about times changing. In my day you could fill up a 737 for about the same as it costs to fill up a 4X4 today :-)We are talking twenty plus years ago.