As one very simple example of the complexity and issues involved, consider the simple and small Kollsman window on ALL barometric altimeters is thousands of airplanes. These are and have been for many years in inches of mercury. How do you deal with this in a clean and straightforward way?
M moon
------ Original Message ------
Received: 11:29 AM PDT, 07/10/2013
From: Michael Payne <[email protected]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:53059] Re: FAA must Metricate
With the prevalence of "glass" cockpits nowadays and the related software it's just a case of pushing a button to display metres or feet on the altimeters and altitude pre select window. All aircraft older than about 1996 probably don't have this feature, note there are a lot of airlines still using planes with "steam driven" (as the saying goes) gauges. But these tend to be based in the 3rd world and some older US domestic airplanes like the MD80-82 etc. I highly doubt there was any confusion between units on the Asiana flight crash, it's just crew inattention.
Received: 11:29 AM PDT, 07/10/2013
From: Michael Payne <[email protected]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:53059] Re: FAA must Metricate
John Steel has all the information stated correctly.
Mike Payne
On 10/07/2013, at 14:01 , "John M. Steele" <[email protected]> wrote:
ALMOST world-wide feet. Russia, China and associates (CIS states, North Korea, Mongolia) were using meters.Russia uses meters below transition level (where altimeters are adjusted for local pressure) but has gone to feet for "flight levels" (no altimeter adjustment, standard atmosphere is assumed) as part of introducing Reduced Minimum Vertical Separation at and above 29000 ft . I'm not a pilot and I can't adequately explain China but at least in RMVS space they assign a flight level in meters, you have to convert on a government table and fly in feet on a foot-graduated altimeter. (I don't know what they do below transition altitude. I'm sure a pilot could explain it better. Almost all commercial cruise is above 29000 feet and in RMVS space, where the reduced separations have been introduced.In Russia, you have to change from feet to meters for landing (and reverse on takeoff) but no change if you are overflying. I'm sure the switching requires extra training. As a non-pilot, it seems risky, but I'm not sure how much risk it introduces. Russia and China went in somewhat different directions, each with their "associates" following, so there are two distinct exception spaces in the world, plus rest-of-world feet.From: Paul Trusten <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Cc: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 1:36 PM
Subject: [USMA:53056] Re: FAA must Metricate
Educate me, folks. I thought that feet were used worldwide in aviation because of the perceived danger of changing over to metric in some kind of terrifying interim. Do we in fact have both meters and feet being used in flight? Talk about your Gimli-Mars tragedies-in-the-making!
Paul Trusten, Reg. Pharmacist
Vice President
U.S. Metric Association, Inc.
Midland, Texas USA
http://www.metric.org/
+1(432)528-7724
[email protected]
On Jul 8, 2013, at 0:38, Bruce Arkwright Jr <[email protected]> wrote:
> What if that poor tired Vietnamese pilot, forget he had hit the convert button, after crossing into our air space, but still read meters instead of feet as he approached the landing strip? Will FAA emit to that? At any rate its time for FAA to get on board!
>
>
> Bruce E. Arkwright, Jr
> Erie PA
> Linux and Metric User and Enforcer
>
>
> I will only invest in nukes that are 150 gigameters away. How much solar energy have you collected today?
> Id put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait till oil and coal run out before we tackle that. I wish I had a few more years left. -- Thomas Edison♽☯♑
>
>
