MSL vs. AGL (Again)

On 7/15/2011 1:16 PM, T8 wrote:
On Jul 14, 10:20 pm, wrote:
The MSL/AGL issue has come before the Caesar Creek Soaring Club Board
once again. Not only has the Club been thrown into turmoil again, this
time it has specifically affected our instructors and how to most
effectively teach our students. I am curious if there are other Clubs
or organizations that teach using AGL.
Rolf Hegele
Member of the Board

Is there even *one* good argument for setting the altimeter to zero on
the runway?

You live anywhere in Florida?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

On Jul 15, 9:37*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 7/15/2011 1:16 PM, T8 wrote:

On Jul 14, 10:20 pm, *wrote:
The MSL/AGL issue has come before the Caesar Creek Soaring Club Board
once again. Not only has the Club been thrown into turmoil again, this
time it has specifically affected our instructors and how to most
effectively teach our students. I am curious if there are other Clubs
or organizations that teach using AGL.
Rolf Hegele
Member of the Board

Is there even *one* good argument for setting the altimeter to zero on
the runway?

You live anywhere in Florida?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

I still think there is hope... Consider (from Wikapedia)

Railway time was the name given to the standardised time arrangement
first applied by the Great Western Railway in England in November
1840. This was the first recorded occasion when a number of different
local times were synchronised and a single standard time applied.
Railway time was progressively taken up by all of the other railway
companies in Great Britain over the following two to three years. The
times schedules by which trains were organised and the times train
stations clocks displayed was brought in line with the local time for
London or "London Time". This was also the time set at Greenwich by
the Royal Observatory, Greenwich which was already widely known as
Greenwich Mean Time or (GMT).

The development of railway networks in India around 1860,[1] and North
America in the 1850s,[2] as well as other countries in Europe, also
prompted the introduction of standard time systems influenced by the
specific, geographical, industrial development and political
governance appertaining.

The key purpose behind introducing railway time was twofold. Firstly,
to overcome the confusion caused by having non-uniform local times in
each town and station stop along the expanding railway network and
secondly, to reduce the incidence of accidents and near misses which
were increasingly occurring as the number of train journeys increased.

The railway companies sometimes faced concerted resistance from groups
of local people in a number of places where trains stopped, who
refused to agree to adjust their public clocks to bring them into line
with London Time. As a consequence two different times would be
displayed in the town and in use with the station clocks and published
in train timetables differing by several minutes from that on other
clocks. Despite this early reluctance, railway time rapidly became
adopted as the default time across the whole of Great Britain although
it still took until 1880 for the government to legislate on the
establishment of a single Standard Time and a single time zone for the
country

On Jul 15, 9:57*pm, "John Godfrey (QT)"
wrote:
On Jul 15, 9:37*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:





On 7/15/2011 1:16 PM, T8 wrote:

On Jul 14, 10:20 pm, *wrote:
The MSL/AGL issue has come before the Caesar Creek Soaring Club Board
once again. Not only has the Club been thrown into turmoil again, this
time it has specifically affected our instructors and how to most
effectively teach our students. I am curious if there are other Clubs
or organizations that teach using AGL.
Rolf Hegele
Member of the Board

Is there even *one* good argument for setting the altimeter to zero on
the runway?

You live anywhere in Florida?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

I still think there is hope... Consider (from Wikapedia)

Railway time was the name given to the standardised time arrangement
first applied by the Great Western Railway in England in November
1840. This was the first recorded occasion when a number of different
local times were synchronised and a single standard time applied.
Railway time was progressively taken up by all of the other railway
companies in Great Britain over the following two to three years. The
times schedules by which trains were organised and the times train
stations clocks displayed was brought in line with the local time for
London or "London Time". This was also the time set at Greenwich by
the Royal Observatory, Greenwich which was already widely known as
Greenwich Mean Time or (GMT).

The development of railway networks in India around 1860,[1] and North
America in the 1850s,[2] as well as other countries in Europe, also
prompted the introduction of standard time systems influenced by the
specific, geographical, industrial development and political
governance appertaining.

The key purpose behind introducing railway time was twofold. Firstly,
to overcome the confusion caused by having non-uniform local times in
each town and station stop along the expanding railway network and
secondly, to reduce the incidence of accidents and near misses which
were increasingly occurring as the number of train journeys increased.

The railway companies sometimes faced concerted resistance from groups
of local people in a number of places where trains stopped, who
refused to agree to adjust their public clocks to bring them into line
with London Time. As a consequence two different times would be
displayed in the town and in use with the station clocks and published
in train timetables differing by several minutes from that on other
clocks. Despite this early reluctance, railway time rapidly became
adopted as the default time across the whole of Great Britain although
it still took until 1880 for the government to legislate on the
establishment of a single Standard Time and a single time zone for the
country- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -







Generally by the time a pilot gets about a hundred hours or so this
discussion resolves itself! Which is about the amount of time it
takes when most Sailship pilots begin to wander from home field
anyways....did you like the "sailship pilots" word I just thought
up? Teach what the student can absorb at the time, and newbies need
to absolutly know where they are in reference to the ground and not
making mental calculations at every turn in the pattern! Additionally
teach common sense first, keep your ****ing head on a swivil and out
side of the cockpit not playing with computers and vario's at critical
moments.

On 7/16/2011 11:30 AM, Chris Donovan wrote:



Generally by the time a pilot gets about a hundred hours or so this
discussion resolves itself! Which is about the amount of time it
takes when most Sailship pilots begin to wander from home field
anyways....did you like the "sailship pilots" word I just thought
up? Teach what the student can absorb at the time, and newbies need
to absolutly know where they are in reference to the ground and not
making mental calculations at every turn in the pattern!

Oh boy...this sounds serious.

Why is the altimeter involved in the landing in any way in the pattern?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

On Jul 16, 11:30*am, Chris Donovan wrote:
On Jul 15, 9:57*pm, "John Godfrey (QT)"
wrote:





On Jul 15, 9:37*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:

On 7/15/2011 1:16 PM, T8 wrote:

On Jul 14, 10:20 pm, *wrote:
The MSL/AGL issue has come before the Caesar Creek Soaring Club Board
once again. Not only has the Club been thrown into turmoil again, this
time it has specifically affected our instructors and how to most
effectively teach our students. I am curious if there are other Clubs
or organizations that teach using AGL.
Rolf Hegele
Member of the Board

Is there even *one* good argument for setting the altimeter to zero on
the runway?

You live anywhere in Florida?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

I still think there is hope... Consider (from Wikapedia)

Railway time was the name given to the standardised time arrangement
first applied by the Great Western Railway in England in November
1840. This was the first recorded occasion when a number of different
local times were synchronised and a single standard time applied.
Railway time was progressively taken up by all of the other railway
companies in Great Britain over the following two to three years. The
times schedules by which trains were organised and the times train
stations clocks displayed was brought in line with the local time for
London or "London Time". This was also the time set at Greenwich by
the Royal Observatory, Greenwich which was already widely known as
Greenwich Mean Time or (GMT).

The development of railway networks in India around 1860,[1] and North
America in the 1850s,[2] as well as other countries in Europe, also
prompted the introduction of standard time systems influenced by the
specific, geographical, industrial development and political
governance appertaining.

The key purpose behind introducing railway time was twofold. Firstly,
to overcome the confusion caused by having non-uniform local times in
each town and station stop along the expanding railway network and
secondly, to reduce the incidence of accidents and near misses which
were increasingly occurring as the number of train journeys increased.

The railway companies sometimes faced concerted resistance from groups
of local people in a number of places where trains stopped, who
refused to agree to adjust their public clocks to bring them into line
with London Time. As a consequence two different times would be
displayed in the town and in use with the station clocks and published
in train timetables differing by several minutes from that on other
clocks. Despite this early reluctance, railway time rapidly became
adopted as the default time across the whole of Great Britain although
it still took until 1880 for the government to legislate on the
establishment of a single Standard Time and a single time zone for the
country- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Generally by the time a pilot gets about a hundred hours or so this
discussion resolves itself! * Which is about the amount of time it
takes when most Sailship pilots begin to wander from home field
anyways....did you like the "sailship pilots" word I just thought
up? * *Teach what the student can absorb at the time, and newbies need
to absolutly know where they are in reference to the ground and not
making mental calculations at every turn in the pattern! Additionally
teach common sense first, keep your ****ing head on a swivil and out
side of the cockpit not playing with computers and vario's at critical
moments.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Intelligent. And... During the first instruction flight, and all
other instruction flights for that matter, the student doesn't NEED to
know anything, that is what the instructor is for. If the student
cannot handle a particular task, say MSL altimeter calculations for
example, then don't teach it at all until they can. Then, when they
have learned ALL of the required skills they are ready for solo.

On Jul 15, 9:37*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 7/15/2011 1:16 PM, T8 wrote:

On Jul 14, 10:20 pm, *wrote:
The MSL/AGL issue has come before the Caesar Creek Soaring Club Board
once again. Not only has the Club been thrown into turmoil again, this
time it has specifically affected our instructors and how to most
effectively teach our students. I am curious if there are other Clubs
or organizations that teach using AGL.
Rolf Hegele
Member of the Board

Is there even *one* good argument for setting the altimeter to zero on
the runway?

You live anywhere in Florida?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

That would be a coincidence, not an argument :-).

Cripes, even my little podunk state of NH has 6288 feet of topographic
relief. I set my altimeter to the low point :-) (also a coincidence).

-T8

On Jul 15, 8:37*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 7/15/2011 1:16 PM, T8 wrote:

Is there even *one* good argument for setting the altimeter to zero on
the runway?

You live anywhere in Florida?


I used to. Silly me. When my flight school was in Miami at a small
grass airport, I had my airplane and glider students set the altimeter
to field elevation.
9 feet. Just a hair above zero. It was an attempt to help them
understand why MSL setting will be important in their future flying.
Now operating at Marfa, Texas (elevation 4849' MSL), I teach MSL
because a glider pilot will need 8,400' MSL to clear nearby Mount
Livermore and if they fly their Gold badge XC north in the direction
of Hobbs or Midland / Odessa they will see plus 3,000' MSL on their
altimeter, not minus 2,000' when they land.

What's the FAA "opinion"? Besides the FAR 91.121 (which contains the
vague term "cruising"), the flawed but "official" FAA Glider Flying
Handbook teaches to set an altimeter to MSL. See section 4-5,
"Setting the Altimeter." If that's the way the latest FAA
publication is teaching altimeter setting . . . that is something that
a legal mind might refer to in court after the accident.

Points to Ponder:
All airports are charted in MSL.
All obstacles are charted in MSL.
All terrain is charted in MSL.
Airplane pilots aloft in your airspace are setting their altimeters to
MSL.
Communications with ATC are in MSL.
Class A airspace starts at 18,000' MSL.
Restricted Airspace . . .

Why are we still debating this? Is the math that difficult? (Round
up, if it is easier.)

Burt
Marfa Gliders Soaring Center, west Texas (4,849' MSL)
USA

On Jul 16, 5:11*am, Burt Compton - Marfa wrote:
Now operating at Marfa, Texas (elevation 4849' MSL),

Respectfully,
If you are flying out of Marfa Texas, you cannot set "0" for AGL
flying.
The altimeter does not unwind that far.

T

Is there even *one* good argument for setting the altimeter to zero on
the runway?

-Evan Ludeman / T8

I learned how to fly at Caesar Creek Soaring Club (nee Soaring Society
of Dayton operating out of Richmond, Indiana) in 1965. As now, the
club used an altimeter setting of zero on the runway (AGL/QFE). I did,
too, for years--with a lot of cross country hours--because I flew only
in the Midwestern U.S. where the greatest difference between takeoff
and landing altitude was a few hundred feet. I referred to those
quaint Sectional charts we used for navigation back then to look up
the field elevation at other airports, which I would have done anyway
even if using MSL/QNH. There was a lot less controlled airspace so I
almost never talked a tower, ATC, or powered aircraft. Most of the
time, the altimeter told me about how high I was above the terrain. If
it looked closer, I used judgment to gauge when it was time to land,
just as I do today.

I can't remember when I made the switch to MSL/QNH for all the right
reasons. It wasn't a big deal. I'm sure using AGL/QFE was easier when
I was an early student--one less thing to worry about--but that's
something the instructor could have covered for me until I could
learn, just as he compensated for my poor takeoff and landing skills
initially.

The biggest reasons AGAINST switching to MSL/QNH earlier were,
interestingly enough, related NOT to staying around the home airport
but to flying cross country and, especially, contests:

1. Start and finish gate altitudes were set AGL. In the olden days
when we dove at high speed across a line on the ground, it was
slightly easier to judge how far above or below the max height one
might be when the big hand on the altimeter was unwinding towards zero
and the hand on the ASI was hovering near redline (ah, the good old
days....).
2. Final glides were MUCH easier to monitor. In those pre-computer
days, I would sit in the cockpit with my cardboard calculator in my
left hand monitoring landmarks as I flew on and comparing altitude
needed with actual altitude above the finish line read directly from
my altimeter. No subtraction required.

After I made the switch to MSL/QNH, for a while copied a technique I'd
read about some pilots using at the Worlds: i.e., I set my altimeter
on zero on the grid and wrote down the pressure setting, then
immediately set it back to field elevation. On final glide, I would
reset the altimeter to the zero pressure setting (AGL/QFE) again so I
could monitor altitude above the finish line. That worked well until I
started flying out West where, as some have pointed out, higher field
elevations made it impossible to reset the altimeter to zero. I read
of at least one world-class pilot who installed two altimeters in the
cockpit, one set to AGL/QFE and the other to MSL/QNH!

With the advent of final glide computers, I no longer needed my
cardboard calculator. I still carry it in the cockpit, however, and
occasionally pull it out to "common sense" the numbers coming out of
the computer. When I do, I mentally do the subtraction to determine my
actual altitude above the goal and am thankful for all the technology
that makes this decision such a no-brainer to younger pilots.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
USA

On Jul 20, 3:21*am, Chip Bearden wrote:
After I made the switch to MSL/QNH, for a while copied a technique I'd
read about some pilots using at the Worlds: i.e., I set my altimeter
on zero on the grid and wrote down the pressure setting, then
immediately set it back to field elevation. On final glide, I would
reset the altimeter to the zero pressure setting (AGL/QFE) again so I
could monitor altitude above the finish line.

I've only done a couple of comps, and in a low performance glider
(PW5) but something I thought obvious, and found useful, was to
annotate the task sheet before launch with the MSL height needed at
the last few turnpoints for a final glide at McCready 0, 2, or 4. And
maybe also at a few landmarks along the way. I also wrote down the
distance to run from each turnpoint.

There was one day that absolutely died, but I managed to get one final
slow scratching climb and then final glide at M=0 (with a 500 ft
safety height) from 3 turnpoints out. Which, to be fair, was only
about 50 km.