You probably just haven't noticed the airplane pitching up and descending to that extent before.

It's perfectly fine... in fact, most mainline jet airlines make a pitch up descent during final approach.

I'm still working on my instrument rating (but will have it in the fall and will be flight instructing in December), but one of the basics of flying is that you usually control your airspeed by pitch, and control your rate of climb/descent with throttle.

You said you seemed fast and high... well, the pitching up reduced the speed, and the reduced throttle increased the rate of descent. It might have been a relatively poorly shot approach by the captain.

Nothing to worry about, probably just an anomaly that the pilot corrected for, such as a thermal, also known as "air pockets".

[This message has been edited by imkeww (edited 07-24-2003).]