Speedbrakes and Pax fear level

[Pablo0007]

Hi,

Just a thought. How far out do you start your decent. I find that on an IFR flight, the ATC start you decending too late. You should desend
at about 1500-1800 ft per min on your auto pilot Vs slider.

this is what I do with all my aircraft. (The PMDG 737 is the exception) I usually start to slow the aircraft down to 220kts at about the
190nm mark. Then depending on the height that I am, I devide the flight level by 3 and that is the recomended starting point to desend.
That was taken flom an airbus flight manual. Istart about 10 miles earlier. So if I am at FL330 instead of starting at 110nm I start at
120nm, ensuring that as you start your desent you are already at 220kts or there abouts. Once the aircraft starts decending, disengage
the auto throttle and bring the engines to idle or press F1. set Vs to around 1500/1800 (no more than that yet), brings flaps down to the
1st setting (no more than that or your flaps freeze up and break) and if the aircraft speeds up a little reduce the rate of decent a little.

Once you are at or around 210kts put 1 more stage of flap and the speed will decrease and just adjust the speed until the speed stays at
190-200kts so that when you reach 10000 ft you will be under the speed restriction and with 2 stages of flaps down (flaps 5 on the 737).

The key to stopping the overspeed is to disengage the auto thottle. you should not need to use the speed brakes at all until you touch
down.
As I said the PMDG is different as I desend more slowly. I only desend at 1100 ft per min as the idle speed once you disengage the
autothottle and throttle yo idle, N1 is still around 40% or so. You need to desend earlier to male the runway.

Hope that this helps a little and your passengers don't scream too much.
Paul