Altimeter Question

"Stefan" wrote in message
...
JGalban via AviationKB.com schrieb:

Understood about the flight levels, but how does one set QFE on an
altimeter on a high altitude airport? Most altimeters I've seen don't
have a
sufficient range in the Kollsman window to set anything above 3,000 ft.
or so.

If you can't, then you can't, simple as that. If you run out of kollsman
range (be it QFE or QNH on some extreme weather), then ask for the QNE,
that's what it is for.

I think the question was simpler than that.

The Kollsman setting is not the local atmospheric pressure. You're running
out of Kollsman setting because your just cranking the Kollsman down while
sitting at a low altitude airport.

The Kollsman setting is the calculated value such that your altimeter reads
zero feet at mean sea level. A high altitude airport is going to have a
setting within the same range.

{Totally a United States perspective. Forgive me if you have some completely
different technique for measuring your altitude above the planet}

--
-------------------------------
Travis
Lake N3094P
PWK

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

WingFlaps wrote in news:cba00260-0bfd-4ac5-8b46-
:


On Apr 18, 3:04 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:


I wasnt aware you dont use the QNH term in the States. So what do

you

call the number you dial up to make the altimeter read airport
elevation?

They don't use any of the Q codes in the US. QNH is one of the few

still

in use around the rest of the world, the rest are pretty much

archaich.

How come the US doesn't adopt ICAO? I thought it had to -isn't that
what ICAO is all about?



They have Nukes and won't be told anything. AFAIK, they're the only
place left that uses in/hg, and the weather reporting format is also
unique. ATC phrasology is also peculiar to the US.
Actually, there are a lot of anomolies around the world. Eastern Europe
and Russia doggedly cling to using windspeed in Meters/second and have
reluctantly accepted using feet for altitude, though there are still a
lot of published platform altitudes of something like "2746 feet" The
Brits still have some oddball notions and can't understand why the rest
of the world doesn't want to do it their way and the middle east is
pretty much close your eyes and ask Allah for guidance. Semicircular
rules are different alsmot everywhere. Theyr'e qudrantal in the UK, in
fact. In Sweden it's N/S instead of E/W because that's the way most of
the traffic goes. Spain is the same.
Africa doesn't have any rules at al as far as I can tell, though it's
ostensibly ICAO
Haven't been to China yet, but it's gotta be interesting too.




Bertie
Florida is north/south also

BillJ wrote in news:BPkOj.317$v91.2063
@eagle.america.net:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

WingFlaps wrote in news:cba00260-0bfd-4ac5-
8b46-
:


On Apr 18, 3:04 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:


I wasnt aware you dont use the QNH term in the States. So what do

you

call the number you dial up to make the altimeter read airport
elevation?

They don't use any of the Q codes in the US. QNH is one of the few

still

in use around the rest of the world, the rest are pretty much

archaich.

How come the US doesn't adopt ICAO? I thought it had to -isn't that
what ICAO is all about?



They have Nukes and won't be told anything. AFAIK, they're the only
place left that uses in/hg, and the weather reporting format is also
unique. ATC phrasology is also peculiar to the US.
Actually, there are a lot of anomolies around the world. Eastern
Europe
and Russia doggedly cling to using windspeed in Meters/second and
have
reluctantly accepted using feet for altitude, though there are still
a
lot of published platform altitudes of something like "2746 feet" The
Brits still have some oddball notions and can't understand why the
rest
of the world doesn't want to do it their way and the middle east is
pretty much close your eyes and ask Allah for guidance. Semicircular
rules are different alsmot everywhere. Theyr'e qudrantal in the UK,
in
fact. In Sweden it's N/S instead of E/W because that's the way most
of
the traffic goes. Spain is the same.
Africa doesn't have any rules at al as far as I can tell, though it's
ostensibly ICAO
Haven't been to China yet, but it's gotta be interesting too.




Bertie
Florida is north/south also


Not if you're flying to Pensacola form Jax.


Bertie

Hi,

In article ,
Bertie the wrote:
I'm more of a frying pan than a kettle.



And you'll notice i have not excluded americans in this thread.

Glad to hear it!

I can't remember precisely what he said, but the jist of the
conversation is there and it's pretty much the way it happened. I don;'t
even know the format off th etop of my head, but he probabyl did it
right.

The format for a PAN is the same as for a Mayday. The book I have uses NAAN
IPPA as the reminder:

Name of station addresses
Aircraft callsign
Aircraft type
Nature of emergency

Intentions
Position (alitude, heading etc.)
Pilot qualifications (bit pointless if you ask me, but I guess it might be
useful to know you've got no Instrument rating)
Any other info

Pretty slim. I've never even used the Mayday and I've had several
emerencies and just declared an emergency and got everything I needed. I
think I'd ony use a Mayday to cut through heavy radio traffic if it was
neccesary.

As I understand it that's the primary reason for a standardised word, that
it enables you to cut through all the other traffic and everyone else knows
to shut up.

Andy

Hi,

In article ,
wrote:
The format is defined as it improves accurarcy and rate of info
transfer. The pilot qualification is not part of the mayday for that
reason. Strangely I was not taught the "mayday relay" format in PPL
but it is used in boating and elsewhere.

Haven't got the book in front of me, but I thought one of the 'P' in IPPA
was the pilot qualifications. I'll have to check, gotta do my R/T practical
soon.

A relayed Mayday is likely to be on there too, from memory the call is:

Mayday mayday mayday, G-ABCD have intercepted Mayday from G-WXYZ, I say
again, G-WXYZ.

The rest of the call is as per the standard Mayday.

Andy

Andy Hawkins wrote in
:

Hi,

In article ,
Bertie the wrote:
I'm more of a frying pan than a kettle.



And you'll notice i have not excluded americans in this thread.

Glad to hear it!

I can't remember precisely what he said, but the jist of the
conversation is there and it's pretty much the way it happened. I
don;'t even know the format off th etop of my head, but he probabyl
did it right.

The format for a PAN is the same as for a Mayday. The book I have uses
NAAN IPPA as the reminder:

Name of station addresses
Aircraft callsign
Aircraft type
Nature of emergency

Intentions
Position (alitude, heading etc.)
Pilot qualifications (bit pointless if you ask me, but I guess it
might be useful to know you've got no Instrument rating)
Any other info

Pretty slim. I've never even used the Mayday and I've had several
emerencies and just declared an emergency and got everything I
needed. I think I'd ony use a Mayday to cut through heavy radio
traffic if it was neccesary.

As I understand it that's the primary reason for a standardised word,
that it enables you to cut through all the other traffic and everyone
else knows to shut up.


And a PAN just doesn't in most of the world.

Also, you're standard format is only after you have th e controller's
attention. He couldn't get that, that's the problem, and he wasted
minutes with a sick pax trying to push the correct format down this guys
throat. A Mayday or "I'm declaring an emergency" would have done that.
Most of the other sutff in that is pretty useless as its part of normal
comms anyway. What you need to do is simplay say "mayday and you're call
sign. the guy you're talking to already knows who he is and chances are
good you've forgotten anyway if you're that excited. Then you quickly
tell him what you're problem is and what you are going to do and what
you want from him and he will give it to you. There's no extra charge
for making a Mayday call as opposed to a Pan. I did a BA course years
ago and they were advocating downgrading your mayday to a Pan in the
case of, say, an engine fire. Once you have the fire out, you're not in
a Mayday situation anymore since the airplane is not in any immediate
danger. Screw that. If I've had an engine fire and I think it's out I'm
still going to want to put the airplane down ASAP and I'm not going to
be too concerned with ATC's problems. They're big boys and can apportion
attention between my airplane and the others in the area.
I wouldn't be thanked at the subsequent inquiry for not taking advantage
of everything at my disposal.


Bertie

Hi,

In article ,
Bertie the wrote:
As I understand it that's the primary reason for a standardised word,
that it enables you to cut through all the other traffic and everyone
else knows to shut up.


And a PAN just doesn't in most of the world.

Ok. Well, that should be addressed in either removing PAN from the ICAO
specs or by ensuring that all controllers know about it.

Agree with all you say about the 'standard' format. In the case of a real
emergency I think all that'll be on my mind is a quick summary of the issue
so that someone is aware of it, and then I'll be concentrating on sorting it
(particularly if the big whirly thing in front of me isn't whirling any
more).

One of my instructors (a very experienced RAF pilot) actually advocated
making the mayday call and then switching the radio off in the case of an
engine failure, as otherwise the military unit we'd likely be talking to
would probably want all sorts of other information, and my attention could
best be spent dealing with the problem at hand.

Andy

Andy Hawkins wrote in
:

Hi,

In article ,
Bertie the wrote:
As I understand it that's the primary reason for a standardised
word, that it enables you to cut through all the other traffic and
everyone else knows to shut up.


And a PAN just doesn't in most of the world.

Ok. Well, that should be addressed in either removing PAN from the
ICAO specs or by ensuring that all controllers know about it.

Well, i'm sure the German controller had been taught about it, but it's
just never used these days. That guy was the one and only PAN call I've
ever heard, and I've heard dozens of emergencies over the years. An
additional problem is accents and the confusion they can cause when a
phrase that isn't used all the time is used. I was told years ago by s
chief pilot I worked for never to use a PAN call for exactly the reason
that guy in Germany shouldn't have..

Agree with all you say about the 'standard' format. In the case of a
real emergency I think all that'll be on my mind is a quick summary of
the issue so that someone is aware of it, and then I'll be
concentrating on sorting it (particularly if the big whirly thing in
front of me isn't whirling any more).

Yeah, fly the airplane first. If you have time to discuss things with
ATC, fine, if you don't, you don't! They understand that you're loaded
up when you make the emergency. Their job from that point is to reduce
your load in any way they can.



One of my instructors (a very experienced RAF pilot) actually
advocated making the mayday call and then switching the radio off in
the case of an engine failure, as otherwise the military unit we'd
likely be talking to would probably want all sorts of other
information, and my attention could best be spent dealing with the
problem at hand.


Well, I think I'd leave th eradio on myself! At least you can tell em
where you've gone down.

On Apr 20, 4:49*am, Andy Hawkins wrote:
Hi,

In article ,
* * * * * wrote:

The format is defined as it improves accurarcy and rate of info
transfer. The pilot qualification is not part of the mayday for that
reason. Strangely I was not taught the "mayday relay" format in PPL
but it is used in boating and elsewhere.

Haven't got the book in front of me, but I thought one of the 'P' in IPPA
was the pilot qualifications. I'll have to check, gotta do my R/T practical
soon.

A relayed Mayday is likely to be on there too, from memory the call is:

Mayday mayday mayday, G-ABCD have intercepted Mayday from G-WXYZ, I say
again, G-WXYZ.



Nope, your memeory is quite confused. "I say again" sounds like
Hollywood R/T.

Cheers

On Apr 20, 5:34*am, Andy Hawkins wrote:


One of my instructors (a very experienced RAF pilot) actually advocated
making the mayday call and then switching the radio off in the case of an
engine failure, as otherwise the military unit we'd likely be talking to
would probably want all sorts of other information, and my attention could
best be spent dealing with the problem at hand.



That would be very dumb. Suppose their question was "Where are you?"
Just rememeber flying the plane always comes first.

Cheers