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Originally Posted by AlexF  The word descend at pilot's discretion has always confused me. To me, I it means "stay where I want, until I want lower" however to most ATC that I come in contact with, they want me to start my decent fairly soon despite their kind words of "pilots discretion." I believe technically it is like a cruise clnc where the pilot may start his decent when he wishes, decend at any speed, temporarly level off at an altitude if desired and then decend some more. However, once an altitude has been vacated, the pilot may not return to that altitude. |
Not really correct. Pilot's Discretion means 'start the descent whenever you want to, but once you start it, descend down to what I assigned you.' It doesn't mean you can level off when you feel like it. That is a cruise or a block altitude. True though, once vacated you can't return.
I never say it unless I really mean it. Hell, stay up as long as you like. If we get to a point where you can't make the descent, that's a little on you and a little on me. However, I don't use it unless I mean it. Clear sky. Nothing between you and the runway. Come on down when you want. You have to understand that most controllers are not pilots. As such, performance characteristics and the idiosyncracies of wanting to stay up versus come down, fuel consumption, etc sometimes get lost on us.