It makes a nice difference, when landing, to have the altimeter match up with the airports actual altitude.
Roypcox wrote:OAM I have always been a fan of yours and I personally would be very proud of my self for what I would call your inventiveness to supply a need that fits the constraints of your small space. Some planes are just layed out differently than others. I.E the landing gear is much different from the DC 3 than say the Beechcraft Barron 58 even the flaps on the DC-3 are on the floor to the side of the seat on the Barron it is on the wheel and on the firewall. With your setup it is basically correct and I for one would be proud to have created such a fine piece of equipment for my enjoyment that fits in a small space and it quiet functional. You should try to sell them!!! Things look great to me. Hip Hip Hooray for a job well done !!!!!
FlexibleFlier wrote:First off, you're very welcome. I'm glad that I could provide some small inspiration.
Second, your hardware skills are far better than mine so I'm not sure I could produce a working button box without some serious step-by-step instructions. However, the challenge is appealing and I may give it a try some day. And, I really like your GPS - especially at that price! See above about buying a button box
Last,It makes a nice difference, when landing, to have the altimeter match up with the airports actual altitude.
It's not really a good idea to get used to setting the primary altimeter to correspond to field elevation. This is not general practice and can lead to disaster. Instrument charts assume ASL baro settings, though they may have AFL in small type in parens. But ATC is expecting you to base your flight on ASL below 18,000 ft!
But here's a twist. When I was a pilot for Eastern Air Lines back in the '60s we did use both: the primary altimeters were set as reported by ATC, which would be AGL, and we had a third altimeter, quite low on the instrument panel, set to field elevation as reported by the company office at the airport. This was mainly a leftover from earlier days when there was no radar altimeter but, of course, unlike radalt it didn't fluctuate wildly with the terrain; it was a bit useful, mostly close in to the airport where the terrain tended to flatten out. Honestly, I remember setting and cross-checking it as part of our procedures but I don't remember ever needing it for safety. I have no idea if any air carriers might still do this.
Nice job all the way around. Wishing you clear skies and a tailwind (except on landing, of course).
~Michael
2. Reported barometric pressures are corrected to sea level.
Barometric pressures reported by the tower and by automatic weather observation stations (AWOS) as "altimeter settings" are corrected to sea level. So are the pressures reported by the weather person on the evening news.
If this were not the case, barometric pressures reported at stations having high elevations, such as Denver, Colorado, would always be low. Locations near sea level would always be high.
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