On Jan 28, 10:55*am, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:04:14 -0800, Bill *Palmer wrote:
There of course, is *no prohibition against having two altimeters. One
set to QNH (field elevation) the other set to QFE (zero on the ground).
This is *how American Airlines operated for decades. QFE is also the
standard in Russia and China.

The Chinese must have some pretty special altimeters if this applies to
all their airfields, including those in Tibet: Bangda airport in eastern
Tibet is at 14,219 feet AMSL.

Bangda has an 18,000 ft (5500m) runway and, I gather, needs it. I've
heard that the pilots must be on oxygen for takeoff and landing.

--
martin@ * | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org * * * |

There's no need for any of this in soaring. XCSoar (what I use) and
all other GPS-map gizmos do a very good job of reporting AGL height
given a good 3D gps input and will (among other things) report an
estimated arrival height over any navpoint. We beat this to death.
The "AGL" altimeter guys had not a single compelling argument. They
lost.

-Evan Ludeman / T8