Moving into one of the seats midway down the aisle we can look out and see New York City sliding by the left wing.
Cruising comfortably along, leaving a contrail at Mach .72 and FL360 (an RVSM altitude), I refer to the FMS and see our projected arrival time is 45 minutes away.
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Even though we still have 45 minutes to go it is time to start preparing for arrival into Washington. DCA can be a tricky little airport to get into due to the unusual approaches that skirt the prohibited areas just north of the field (P-56). The reported weather at DCA is good with light winds out of the south, a 1300’ overcast ceiling and good visibility underneath. We can expect to shoot the LDA/DME 19 which is offset from the runway heading by about 40 degrees.
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Once again I turn to the FlitePrep software to derive my landing data which I plug into the V-speed selection menu. Abeam Philadelphia I start descending early in order to keep ahead of the game. If I had more experience in the ERJ I would probably wait until the FMS calculated top-of-descent which is calculated by the FMS. In reality I’ve found that planning TOCs and TODs is fairly unrealistic in the fluid environment of the air traffic system.
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Through FL180 I set the altimeter to 29.89 and keep the speed bumped up near redline. The moving map shows the point where we will enter onto the BUCKO6 arrival.
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