I first learned it in Minden and then refined it in
Cal City.

What the objecters have not realized is just how fast
you can bleed off tons of excess speed by lifting the
nose to the horizon with full spoilers out.

And again, the maneuver need not necessarily be carried
out to the threshold, even, much less to the round
out. You can use it to bleed off 200ft or 500ft when
you are at 1000ft on final [No, this is not the everyday
pattern or practice] and then you can lift the nose
and lose the speed when it looks like you are at the
normal height for that distance from the touchdown
point. When the speed drops to proper approach speed
you just adjust the spoilers and continue as normal.
Once you have done it it no longer appears to be a
dare-devil ride; it is entirely predictable.

At 00:12 23 October 2007, 5z wrote:
On Oct 22, 4:52 pm, Tom Gardner wrote:
And I take the point that it's not usually necessary
to finish the
manoeuvre at ground level.

IMHO, it's useful to demonstrate this on final approach,
but a better
place to apply it in real life would be earlier in
the landing
pattern. For example huge amounts of lift on downwind,
so dive off
the altitude on base.

In the US southwest, where downbursts and the associated
huge sink and
sometimes lift can happen, I've found myself turning
a high final
expecting 40-50 knots headwind and it's vanished.
I've also
experienced huge lift on base / final as the outflow
curl decided to
position itself right at the end of the runway. So
these are the
cases where I might be tempted to use the dive while
on final
approach.

-Tom