Compared to taxiing and parachute recovery, skyhook recovery has higher requirements for height and speed control accuracy. A new longitudinal control method during skyhook recovery of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is proposed in this paper. Skyhook recovery control strategy and process are designed and composition of control system is proposed. Based on UAV wind tunnel data, linear and nonlinear model are developed. The longitudinal track control law is designed by using the total energy theory. The final flight verification test results show that the longitudinal track control law is correct and can satisfy the requirement of skyhook recovery.