Altimeter experience

[HankC]

Last weekend I had an interesting experience at a samll airport...

I was inbound, 15 miles out and above pattern altitude and descending.

I dialed the field to get runway in use and wind. He also gave me
altimeter, which I started to dial in, and in and in...

I slowly realized this was not right by a long shot.

I vaguely remembered the previous setting and altitude, set it back
and managed to land.

Turns out that someone had set the field altimeter to field elevation
(600 feet) but had dialed it in BACWARDS past zero to basically -400
feet! The reading was a historically hurricane low pressure, perhaps
only seen before in Death Valley.

At least for the next couple of flights, when changing altimeter
settings, I'll think to myself 'off of 2992 for ????'...


Cheers,
HankC

[Icebound]

100 feet error is basically 0.1 inch of mercury. He misread a
digit...his own handwriting or a poor printer... like: instead of 30.22
he read 30.32... or maybe you HEARD 30.32??

HankC wrote:
> Last weekend I had an interesting experience at a samll airport...
>
> I was inbound, 15 miles out and above pattern altitude and descending.
>
> I dialed the field to get runway in use and wind. He also gave me
> altimeter, which I started to dial in, and in and in...
>
> I slowly realized this was not right by a long shot.
>
> I vaguely remembered the previous setting and altitude, set it back
> and managed to land.
>
> Turns out that someone had set the field altimeter to field elevation
> (600 feet) but had dialed it in BACWARDS past zero to basically -400
> feet! The reading was a historically hurricane low pressure, perhaps
> only seen before in Death Valley.
>
> At least for the next couple of flights, when changing altimeter
> settings, I'll think to myself 'off of 2992 for ????'...
>
>
> Cheers,
> HankC


--
"The Final 20 percent of the Project... requires 80 percent of the Effort"
---- paraphrased from Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923)

[Icebound]

Oh, my miskate... .... a thousand feet error, not a hundred.... so the
digit he screwed up was in the next position, .... 29.xx vs 28.xx...


Icebound wrote:
> 100 feet error is basically 0.1 inch of mercury. He misread a
> digit...his own handwriting or a poor printer... like: instead of 30.22
> he read 30.32... or maybe you HEARD 30.32??
>
> HankC wrote:
>
>> Last weekend I had an interesting experience at a samll airport...
>>
>> I was inbound, 15 miles out and above pattern altitude and descending.
>>
>> I dialed the field to get runway in use and wind. He also gave me
>> altimeter, which I started to dial in, and in and in...
>>
>> I slowly realized this was not right by a long shot.
>> I vaguely remembered the previous setting and altitude, set it back
>> and managed to land.
>>
>> Turns out that someone had set the field altimeter to field elevation
>> (600 feet) but had dialed it in BACWARDS past zero to basically -400
>> feet! The reading was a historically hurricane low pressure, perhaps
>> only seen before in Death Valley.
>>
>> At least for the next couple of flights, when changing altimeter
>> settings, I'll think to myself 'off of 2992 for ????'...
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>> HankC
>
>
>


--
"The Final 20 percent of the Project... requires 80 percent of the Effort"
---- paraphrased from Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923)