James Robinson wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

The Lockheed Tristar had a unique use for them in that they
controlled glidepath on the approach. I've only had it described to
me, but basically the airplane maintatined a stwady pitch angle and
workng the stick back and forth brought the speedbrake up and down to
control glide. Don't quote me on that, though.

Yep. They called it Direct Lift Control. It made for very accurate
autolands. It was set up when the flaps were extended for final
approach.

I remember flying in a couple of Tristars where the engine RPMs would
drop at the beginning of descent, and there would be no power changes
until the flare. The DLC system would control things on the glide
slope without the need for any power changes. I remember asking myself
how the pilot was so accurate with the power setting the first time it
happened, before I knew about the system.


That's it. I thought it sounded awful, but everyone i knew who flew them
thought it was fanatastic.


Bertie