Enter the total descent distance and the total horizontal distance into the Descent Rate Calculator. The calculator will evaluate the Descent Rate.

## Descent Rate Formula

The following two example problems outline the steps and information needed to calculate the Descent Rate.

DER = DD / HD

• Where DER is the Descent Rate (descent per horizontal distance)
• DD is the total descent distance
• HD is the total horizontal distance

## How to Calculate Descent Rate?

The following example problems outline how to calculate Descent Rate.

Example Problem #1:

1. First, determine the total descent distance.
• The total descent distance is given as: 100.
2. Next, determine the total horizontal distance.
• The total horizontal distance is provided as: 50.
3. Finally, calculate the Descent Rate using the equation above:

DER = DD / HD

The values provided above are inserted into the equation below and computed.

DER = 100 / 50 = 2:1 (descent per horizontal distance)

Example Problem #2:

For this problem, the variables required are provided below:

total descent distance = 500

total horizontal distance = 20