I'm not sure what you mean by "aerodynamic braking", however I'm going to assume you mean slowing down while inflight...

There are different techniques depending on what aircraft you're in, but assuming you're just trying to slow down, here are some easy ways to do it:

1.  Decrease or cut your throttle.  Not very quick, but you'll slow down and descend.

2.  Spoilers.  Essentially nothing but air brakes.

3.   Extend your flaps.  Be careful with this though...too fast and you'll damage them.

4.  Lower your gear.  Also not a great idea, because if you're going too fast, you'll damage those as well.  But it WILL slow you down a bit.

5.  Get snobby.  Put that nose a little up in the air.  You'll climb, but you'll slow down, too.  Watch out for the stall speed though!

Hope this helped!

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Correction ! : I beg to differ with this statement........

Spoilers are just that ....spoilers....used to spoil the lift generated by the wing........and although they do add a measure of braking effect, that isn't the "essential" purpose of them.  In fact they do the opposite, since while spoiling a section of the lift in a wing, they have the effect of reducing the effective wing area which also raises the effective wingloading, this does have an effect of increasing drag and requires a higher angle of attack to maintain level flight or allow descent without building excessive speed........
Aerodynamic braking can be done by slipping during descent using a balance of rudder/aileron/elevator on an aircraft without flaps....on an aircraft with flaps, once excessive flap deflection is deployed (this angle is not finite as it depends on wing chord/flap chord ratio, section thickness, and other things), more drag than lift is generated and slowing is the result........

Air Brakes are just that.....high drag devices that intrude into the slipstream to add frontal area to the aircraft in a manner which will not affect flight performance other than a slowing effect.........no pitch, no roll, no yaw....

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.....you start talking my language and I have to jump in...........   8)    8) 

If it sound like I'm steppin on toes, I appologize, as thats not what I am doin........just don't want errant info to affect someones understanding of basic flight principles....... 

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WE NEED TO TALK.............this quote Quote:
is from this page http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f15_2.html

Wing brake ?.....are you talking about the variable incidence wing position which was used on the Crusader to raise the angle of attack without decreasing pilots visibility for approaches to carrier landings, I'm sure though that the lead edge of the wing would act as a brake in the raised position.........I have heard of situations where some pilots have taken to the air oblivious to the fact that the wings are still in the "Stowed-Hangardeck" position....

On the speed brake thing with a Crusader, I thought they had a ventral brake, which may have had a pitch effect, but if used in conjunction with the raising of the wing, the pitch effect may have been cancelled out.Don't forget though, that this design was brought to the air many yrs ago (The first production F8U-1 (BuNo 140444) flew for the first time on September 30, 1955, the same day as the maiden flight of the second XF8U-1. ) .........its not what I would assess as a state of the art A/C these days, since this was almost half a century ago..........

Absolutely...my only question was the initial statement that a spoiler is essentially an airbrake......but now you know my feelings on it, there is no need to pursue it further....on the Avanti, have you ever seen one ?....we had one operating out of Buttonville in Ont, and I saw it reg as it flew quite close to a model field where I used to fly and instruct.........quite a different sound with those scimitar blade props behind the disturbed flow of the A/C...............on that note, I have seen two actual lifting bodies at Wright-Patterson in the US AirForce Museum.....I believe one was the Martin-Marietta X-24B and the other was an earlier version,...number escapes me at the moment........

Don't worry about the boot in the mouth smilie   ....being ignorant of facts, means that you just haven't been exposed to the info yet.....there is so much out there which we all, will never know........... 8)  8)

Slipping was mentioned in my first post although didn't go into in detail as to how its performed....

Rifleman = Jokester........you won't find anger in my posts......humour is a large part of my life too.......... 8)  


Depending on what aircraft you are using to lose your excess height, you can slip quite nicely at times.....I know some A/C in 2002 do it better than others, but I have found reasonable performance in slipping the Tiger Moth like this........don't forget to disconnect the auto-rudder.....