hi allon the 737/800 once your in cruise and planning your descent, there is an option to select flap/speed setting for the approach, however is this the speed and flap setting for your approach or the actual landing / touchdown flap and speed setting?I always thought it was the actual landing configuration flap / speed of the plane and not the 'approach' itself.

Landing and approach (Tee Hee):-) - I usually set up to land with these settings around 9 to 11 miles out. This is just my way and may not be the correct way but I find it settles the plane down instead of adding full flaps a mile or two out as then the plane as to resettle on the glide slope (if u are using it). The purists will chip in here no doubt. :* :*

On the real aircraft the way this is used is - Prior to top of descent you review the PROG page to see the amount of fuel you arrive at destination with and take that from the fuel you have at that particualr time, then go to the APP page and insert the new weight as this will be much nearer to the weight you will be on landing.Select the flap and REF speed that you will use and the standard way to fly the approach is to have VREF+5 on approach, which is usually so the speed bug sits just on top of the magenta line. If it windy then an adjutment is made to the VREF speed usually 1/2 the headwind + all the gust upto a maximum of 15kts.Hope this is a clear enough explanation.RegardsUKP

Hi Clayton,You are correct, the approach setting in the FMC is the landing configuration. This is calculated as explained by UK Pilot, including the actual landing speed, which is Vref.Once you have the landing config set up you have to get there from your clean speed.The suggested plan of action is as follows.Set speed at 10kts higher than flap setting, so if flap 5 is indicated as 160kts reduce speed to 170kts then deploy 5 degrees of flaps.Have flaps 5 selected by the start of your initial approach.As you reduce speed below the flap 5 setting deploy flaps 10, and so on.A stabalised approach should happen above 1,000ft AGL and consist of:Landing configOn the glide slopeSpeed within 5 kts of Vref (modified for any gusts)Rate of descent no more than 1,000ft/minEngines spooled up to maintain speed and descent rate. Don't put them to idle, that happens above the threshold.I normally put gear down one dot below g/s.HTH

thanks that clears it up abit.