Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Procedure; Weather; Human Factors
We were assigned a speed of 180 knots to the final approach fix of PAYED for the ILS Z 4L. It's not unusual to be assigned a speed above that which we can be fully configured to the final approach fix while flying an ILS and I made mention of that to the FO when we were shooting this approach in particular. As we approached PAYED; we picked up the airport visually. I was still at flaps 20 and gear up to comply with the speed assignment. Since we broke out of the clouds right at the final approach fix; we stated that we had the visual cues and that visual calls would be made from that point thereby missing my 'Final Approach' call which I had planned to use as my cue to then slow down and continue to configure the aircraft. As we came up on 1700 feet MSL; the RA read under 1000 feet for just a moment and triggered the gear horn. We quickly finished configuring the aircraft and were stabilized by 700 feet AGL and continued the landing.Obviously; the root cause of this event was my inability to configure the aircraft for landing by 1000 feet AGL. Some contributing factors were the weather in that we broke out right at the final approach fix which made me miss my originally planned cue for final configuration and ATC requiring us to keep a speed higher than that which allows us to become fully configured by the final approach fix. I believe that having ATC request a speed above final configuration speed to the final approach fix is very limiting to safety. I understand their need to keep our approaches standard but to do that to the final approach fix is just too tight. On our first flight into the same airport that morning; this same speed request had us very nearly go around as we were below 100 feet AGL when the 757 in front of us finally exited the runway and caused the airplane on approach behind us to go around. With several fixes along an ILS; perhaps to keep approaches as tightly packed as they can; a fix far enough from the final approach fix that allows us to fully configure by that point would be a better option.
CRJ-200 Captain reported flying an unstable approach into DTW. Tight ATC spacing was cited as a contributing factor.