I was on a 757 from Minneapolis to Atlanta the other day. They didn't lose the speed brake until final landing config.

I hardly ever use the speed brakes.. Maybe one flight out of every twenty I'll need em a bit..

If that often.. And that's only if ATC leaves me high and fast on the approach.

Most flights, the only time I touch the lever is to arm it for auto deploy for landing..

I almost always descend semi-manually using V/S.. And only in rare cases will I end up

too high/fast for the approach.

I believe most airlines use flight change for descent anyway. Especially with a model that doesn't slow down well... -800

One of the reasons the VNAV not to be able to slow down the airplane for the final approach, is the fact that we are rarely inputting the estimated winds throughout the descend in the FMC. I know I never do that... Sometimes the ATC gives us funny vectors to final and VNAV calculations go to the bin anyway.

 

I still try to figure out what is less embarasing - to have the spoilers deployed all the way to gear down or to crawl 20NM with flaps 5 and engines thundering above the houses at 2000 feet...

perhaps they want to keep killing lift when they deploy flaps to compensate and keep the descent stable....spoilers kill the lift and flaps increase it....just a thought.....

Probably the use of spoilers with flaps down occurring a lot, is to do with the way pilots are encouraged these days to maintain a high speed as long as possible, to speed up traffic flow. Then it's spoilers required to slow down in a hurry.

 

When I watch aircraft land on caspeflights.com, into places like Heathrow, I'm often astonished how late they arrive at VREF.

 

I'm not sure how accurate those air speeds are on casperflight.com though.

As for speed brakes with flaps: It's usually speed brakes first for whatever reason such as a rapid descent into LIMF, LIMZ or LIPZ (due to their proximity to the Alps) keeping/bringing the speed under control then extending the flaps. Flying the a/c according to the flap setting and lowering the speed brakes soon after once the a/c speed stabalises. Thereafter DO NOT use them again until the landing roll.

vololiberista

When slowing down for approach, I prefer early extension of flap 1 and gear to speedbrakes. Speedbrakes are not that effective under 240 anyway... and you can put the gear down as soon as 250, so basically at FL100.

However with some fancy vectoring from the kind of ATC that does not quite understand that to get rid of energy you need some trackmiles... I have been in situations when I had everything out and still too fast, heavily considering a sideslip. Usually if I see that I wont make FAF at platform and no more than 180 knots, I rather call it a day and try again.

I do get into that situation from time to time, almost on purpose, admitedly... I just love doing high energy constant descend approaches. The feeling when you put the thrust on idle on TOD and only push it back up reaching 1000AAL and Vapp is only surpassed by the feeling when you manage to do it without using speedbreaks.

A simple rule of thumb: If your flaps are already out forget your speedbrakes.

vololiberista

Depends on the aircrafts limit. In slippery jets like the 5/550, you may have to use both as you transition to approach speeds. On the East coast, we run into this issue all the time. You are held up even though you que the controller for lower. They often give you baby descents, a couple thousand at a time, until you get the slam dunk to a lower altitude with a restriction. In these situations, planning is out the window. I don't like using the boards until they are required. For example in the 550, i get slammed dunked as im cleared below 10,000ft. I use max boards and attempt to reach 250 by 10,000ft. At 250 i can use flaps 10. At 245, i call "below 250, flaps 10". I leave the boards up and once at 215, i call "below 220, flaps 20". By this time i usually retract the boards as i continue to slow on the vector. There are times when the descent leads right into the app leaving you hi and fast. In these situations i retract the boards and call" below 225, gear down, before landing check". We call these types space shuttle approaches. I have noticed md80s, 737s, and 757s using speed brakes and flaps when i commercial back to KDCA. Can't afford to be too fast when landing on a short runway.

Generally, I'll have to say speedbrake usage up to flaps 5 is okay.

After gear down and flaps 15, the speedbrake handle should be stowed though. The landing gear drag will make up for the speedbrake drag.

Speedbrake usage with higher flaps settings will cause noticable airframe buffeting and noise. Passengers will notice you screwed up at this point!

If the airplane is still high and fast after the gears down and flaps are at 15,25,30 or 40, you probably should be thinking about a go-around and not pulling the speedbrake.

 

Think stablized approach.

 

 

John Floyd