Your favorite altitude

EridanMan writes:

About the only exception i'll say in terms of other 'altitude
preference'. When flying heavily congested, open vfr airspace (such
as SF bay on a bay tour), I've always been most comfortable flying at
'250 and '750 altitudes rather than '000 and '500... The rational is
pretty simple - its still trivially easy to track my altitude
precisely (the mind responds faster to vertical or horizontial
orientations on the altimeter than it does reading particular values),
while at the same time, it gets me 'off the beaten path' so to speak.

Do you risk getting into any trouble by not following the x500 rule for
altitude?

Wouldn't it be safer to fly at x200 or x700 altitudes, since the transponder
rounds off to the nearest hundred?

Unusual altitudes appear to violate 91.159 unless you're at 3000 AGL or below,
although I thought I had read somewhere that VFR flights could fly at any
altitude as long as they were not directed otherwise by ATC.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

I'm _well_ below 3000ft AGL (if you check the SF chart, you'll see the
whole area I'm talking about resides beneath a 1500/3000 foot SFO
Bravo shelf).

Transponders only need to be calibrated to within 300 feet, so the
granularity isn't important, as I mentioned, I find it FAR easier to
hold a 250 or 750 altitude anyways because I can just reference a
horizontal line on the altimeter.

And, this is just my personal practice, I _do not_ vouch for it beyond
that, and If anyone has an issue with it, I'm interested to learn why.

"EridanMan" wrote in news:1176350711.848357.286000
@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

And, this is just my personal practice, I _do not_ vouch for it beyond
that, and If anyone has an issue with it, I'm interested to learn why.

My only issue is that you published it, and now everyone is going to be doing
it, so it will be no safer than flying 000 and 500's.

My only issue is that you published it, and now everyone is going to be doing
it, so it will be no safer than flying 000 and 500's.

LOL...

I suppose I can understand what your saying... but anyone who depends
on using Off Altitudes for traffic avoidance already has problems
unrelated to their scheme for picking altitudes... Especially in the
heavily air-trafficed scenic areas I'm describing, where out of town
(and inexperienced) pilots are bobbing up, down, left and right
jockeying for the best view

There is nothing about flying at an off-level that in and of itself
promotes collision avoidance... in fact, if anything, not being where
you're 'expected' to be might have a slight effect to the contrary.
however - in a situation where "see-and-avoid" is the rule, and Norcal
approach is calling out traffic calls virtually non stop, I see being
at an 'off' level as being just one more slight layer of protection...
if everything else breaks down... I fail to see him, he fails to see
me, ATC fails to see either of us, and we just so happen end up at the
exact same position at the exact same time, then there is slightly
more chance that we'll do so at enough of a varying altitude that it
won't end both of our day.

Obviously, for this to have any effect, every other mechanism out
there for keeping us out of eachother's paths must have failed
(including gross failures for both of us in our PIC duties)... But
given the nature of the airspace in question... I'll take that slight
level of added contingency.

And I highly doubt that enough people on here will read my tactic, let
alone actually start practicing it, to have any statistically
noticable effect on GA flying practices over the SF Bay But even if
they did, just the idea of getting pilot's to 'spread out' over our
available altitudes instead of bunching up on a few 'typical' wouldn't
necessarily be a bad thing... IMHO at least.

"EridanMan" wrote in
ups.com:

My only issue is that you published it, and now everyone is going to be
doing it, so it will be no safer than flying 000 and 500's.

LOL...

As a practice, I typically fly 100' over or under the 000 or 500.

But I was just joking about spreading the word. I didn't make up the idea, I
heard it from someone else and thought it was a good one.