I was watching an aviation video where the pilot figured out his descent angle in order to make a fix and tell his autopilot what angle to use. Most people just use a descent rate in feet per minute. I never read of any easy way to do an angle calculation without a calculator, but this guy did it on his kneeboard real quick, and it was supposedly a real enactment, so I thought about it a little while, and came up with this fairly simple formula. Easy enough but still requires pen and paper.

>Divide the altitude to be lost by the distance in ft, and then divide by 1.7, and slide the decimal.

Ex. 5000 ft / 10 miles (61000 ft) = .082 / (1.7) = .0487° --> 4.8°

Anybody know one that does not require pen and paper?