The one calculation which I constantly find myself doing during the last 6 miles when establish on the ILS is "What should my rate of descent (RoD) be?"

Now I know that the glideslope gives that to me as a visual "..too high, too low, just right...." but somehow I always like to have secondary confirmation of these things especially when all I can see is wall to wall clouds outside the cockpit and I know that the ground is coming up to meet me in the not too distant future!

To have an indication of what the necessary RoD should be in order to land on the numbers and to correlate that to the aircraft's VSI would be a very comforting addition to SD's armory.

At the moment, I'm doing it in my head on the decent at a time when the workload is at its heaviest. Some how I really think that, since SD is doing this calculation constantly in the background; advises me at the start of the virtual ILS approach of the required RoD; a simple display inside the virtual ILS instrument followed by a quick flick of the eyes to the cockpit VSI would do the job in a matter of seconds.

So what do you think for all of us (V)FR fliers?




Biggles -- EGKB

More relevant information, is a prerequisite to better decisions. ROD and AC position constantly vary in flight. Now would it be better to avail such info to the pilot or do we feel that it would be unsafe to do so? I certainly would have appreciated even approximate info when both my suction pump and air speed indicator packed up on take off. Something is better than nothing I'd say.

Very Newbytheway

DurhamTeaseAirport

On my iPad 3 the gps derived height is around 200' below the QFE, and the SD glideslope is on the bottom of the scale when I'm actually on slope. So I'm not about to rely on a £600 iPad to keep me alive any time soon, and even as backup I think I'd have to have a WAAS gps addon before I even went to 600'

On my iPAD3 the GS is always 1/2 scale deflection down when on the Glide Slope. Surprisingly, my Chinese GPS navigator is as accurate as the actual ILS needles (bearing in mind the hide & seek factor of the GS needle in SD). However, all that is beside the point. The real point is that here all is not at the pilot's disposal. Having some approximate information is better than having zilch & a psudo ILS that does not play hide and seek would not make flying too risky. Hiding it would not enhance safety.

Very Newbytheway

DurhamTeaseAirport

Amen, Biggles.