Altimeter Setting

Rolf wrote:
Over the years (30 or so) Caesar Creek Soaring Club has vacillated
with setting the altimeter to zero or MSL. Last year the Board decided
to put the Club ships on an MSL basis (private gliders exempted).
There are however a number of members who are continuing to make it an
issue. I would be interested in your thought and comments.
Thanks
Rolf Hegele
CCSC President


The English way is (or at least was) to set QFE for landings and
takeoffs, and to set QNH at (if I remember) 3000 ft. The station baro
setting for QFE was transmitted on arrival at destination. En-route, the
forecast QNH was used. Both settings were provided in millibars.

Oh, I should translate QNH to mean a baro setting = 0 ft "Altitude" at
mean sea level and QFE baro setting reads 0 ft "height" at station
elevation.

The American way is to use QNH until at flight level altitudes the
pressure altitude setting of 29.92 inHg comes into play.
The American way minimizes screwing around with baro settings: a current
QNH value may be obtained by tuning ATIS, AWOS etc. frequencies en route.
The English way can I suppose lead to better pattern altitudes
( = circuit heights) because they can always be 500 ft, 1000 ft,
or 400 ft., 800 ft indications.

The American way involves descending to a pattern altitude as given by
elevation (from the chart) + pattern height. At Altus for example, that
would be 1433 + 1000 ft


For what it's worth...


Brian W