MSL vs. AGL (Again)

On Jul 14, 7:20*pm, N11rdbird 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

"Tonopah traffic Skywagon N180BM entering left down wind descending
out of 7200' ".

"Tonopah traffic glider N233L I'm left down wind midfield at (hmmm,
let's see the field is, ahh, where's my chart uh 5426'
uhhh I set my altimeter to 0' when I took off 30 minutes ago now it
says 1520' uhh plus 5426' is uhh, man I wish I had oxygen in this ship
I can't
add). Uhh I'm 1520' above the field, doh.

Ka boom.

On Jul 15, 2:44*pm, Bill D wrote:
On Jul 15, 2:57*pm, Andy wrote:





On Jul 15, 10:11*am, Bill D wrote:

If you want to see them sweat bullets, take one who is seeking to add
a -G to their CFI certificate out of gliding range of the home field
and ask, "Exactly how much altitude do we need to get back".

If you are out of gliding range the answer doesn't matter until you
find lift and then want to know when to leave it. *Up to then the
correct response may be "You have control".

Suddenly, a correctly set altimeter becomes a big deal.

Correctly set yes, but the problem can be solved whether it is set to
the correct QFE or set to the correct QNH. *It's actually easier in
this case to use QFE since if the altitude needed is less that the
indicated altitude then you have a glide solution. No need to worry
about the value of field elevation. *In the above I'm assuming that
altitude needed is the altitude expected to lost in making the glide
plus the arrival margin, not the absolute altitude. *That, after all,
is what has to be determined first.

I'm not arguing for using QFE, just pointing out you have selected a
poor reason for not doing so.

Andy

Your objection only holds true if you manage to return to the
departure airfield. *"Out of gliding range" implies the flight may end
somewhere else.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

No - your stated question was - "How much altitude do I need to get
back?", not "How much altitude do I need to landout?".

Andy

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, 4:05*pm, glidergeek wrote:
On Jul 14, 7:20*pm, N11rdbird 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

"Tonopah traffic Skywagon N180BM entering left down wind descending
out of 7200' ".

"Tonopah traffic glider N233L I'm left down wind midfield at (hmmm,
let's see the field is, ahh, where's my chart uh 5426'
*uhhh I set my altimeter to 0' when I took off 30 minutes ago now it
says 1520' uhh plus 5426' is uhh, man I wish I had oxygen in this ship
I can't
add). Uhh I'm 1520' above the field, doh.

Ka boom.

Excellent analogy. But the mechanicals are not there to set an
altimeter to zero at Tonopah. It does not unwind that far. And if
you've flown around Tonopah, you know the valleys are around 5500MSL,
and the "ridges" can be above 11,000MSL.

Pilots need to do the math from day one. Fly on MSL, every one else
does. Learn to compute AGL from MSL minus
chart elevations below you.

T

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

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

Wowser!!! Thanks - I think - for providing me an "I can't believe what I'm
experiencing," moment. What a buzz.

But enough about me. The 'issue' you raise is akin to an argument about
whether it's better to verify a revolver is unloaded by cracking open the
cylinder and looking, or, leaving the cylinder in place and looking down the
barrel and possibly pulling the trigger if there's any doubt.

The people advocating setting to 0' are - to be blunt - arguably insane.
Paraphrasing (I think) Elmer Fudd, "What a bunch of maroons!!!" (Have any/all
of them contact me personally for a considered, polite, civil discussion of
why this is so.)

Amazement aside, thanks for exposing your club's issue to a public spotlight;
this sort of 'thinking' definitely needs to be excised from potential training
curricula.

Respectfully,
Bob W.

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