Abstract: An air bearing slider has both front and rear pads extending from a generally planar body, both pads having faces opposed to a recording medium and separated by a gap that is substantially in excess of any fly height of the slider. Both surfaces exhibit extremely small taper angles that enable "inlet throttling" of air beneath the slider. Such inlet throttling provides the slider with a fly height that is substantially independent of relative speed changes between the slider and a recording medium. A preferred embodiment includes front and rear pads that are convex in, the direction of movement of the recording medium e.g. are "forward swept". Such convexity enables substantial resistance to fly height changes in response to skew alteration.