I flew green needles the other night, ohh wait, no I didn't cause we waited for 5 hours to deice in 'da atl and timed out :)

man wouldnt it be nice to have FMS....ahhh one day, although the good ole garmin 400 can do the same thing, it just takes 20 minutes to program it...I kid....:D still faster to use mental math

Most times ATC will give a pilot's discretion descent clearance, so you can hang out at cruise altitude until you're ready to descend. You know that you are making ATC nervous when they coyly ask you if you're going to make that crossing restriction!

Generally I plug the fix in the FMC (for situational awareness), do the mental math and wait to start the descent. Then during the descent, it's fun to watch the green line on the VNAV come into the picture and settle-in on the fix! Of course, you might need a handful of spoilers to help get ya down.

You can peg the VSI with a flight idle descent from high altitude, high airspeed and spoilers deployed. The VSI on the 767 pegs out at 6k (up or down), so if you're coming down like a banshee and the VSI is pegged, you might not really know what your descent rate is (unless you time it). But you sure come down fast!!

And just sit back and hope it works;)
fbh

I almost always ask for a discretionary descent and ATC usually works with me - no problem. One of the worst was going from OK to VA; ATC just hada hard time working us in with other corossing traffic I assume and always tried to work us down way too far out for our liking - but it all works out in the end :) Yeah - I imagine they might get a llittle nervous - but I've always made those restrictions (so far and knocking on wood!)

USMCFLYR

I try to do all flight idle descents at work, and I use the FMS to help me out with that. The only problem is the profile of the descent. We do .77 in the descent and transition to 320kts. In order to do that flight idle you need about 4,000ft/min. Sometimes that can be a little too much with passengers on board, and I will only do that if I'm getting a big descent over with over 10,000ft difference (like F220-10,000). Come to find out recently the company checked with Bombardier and passed the message on to us that the .77/320 was supposed to be a power assisted descent (not flight idle), haha, so they are altering the profile soon.

Sometimes if I'm doing a crossing restriction on an arrival that is also a speed restriction (like 250/10000) I will create a fix 5 miles prior to the restriction point, aim for that and finish my descent. Then I'll just take the 5 miles straight and level to slow from 320 to 250kts. How does everyone else do it?

Back to the creating fixes, if I entered KMHT/-30 to make that 30 mile this side fix, it would display on the screens as a waypoint called KMH01 or something like that. Well I think that's boring, so I always make a name up for my fixes, and since I went to Auburn - it's typically KMHT/-30/AUBIE or TIGER - and that creates the name for the fix (for all those CRJ guys that may not have known that). Your fix name can be as little as 1 letter, or it can be up to 5 letters.

IIRC, the CRJ slows at about 10 knots a mile. I'm sure five miles works, though. I just remember needing about 7 for 335-250.

J.

I use the FMS and program in a 4 degree descent angle. This usually results in a flight idle descent (or darn close). Then I just back it up with mental math (because the 386 computers take a minute to figure it out). Granted, you might have to use spoilers (esp. if there is a speed limitation at the fix), but that's why they are installed. Right?

A couple of problems - 1)As someone else stated, its not as comfortable for the passengers. But then again, fuel savings is more likely to save my job. 2) I think that ATC computers are programmed at 3 degree descent rates. Controllers seem to get a little nervous when its a minute or two past when they figure the descent should start. However, pilot's discretion usually works (unless you are in the Northeast US).

My $0.02.

Yeah I'll usually chop the power just prior to the 5 mile fix, like mile or half mile, and it usually does it just fine. Rarely will I ever have to use spoilers. If I neglect to factor in a raging tailwind, then I'll end up screwing myself and have to pull the boards out.