In 2003, I had an interesting experience at a small airport...

I was inbound, 15 miles out, above pattern altitude and descending.

I called the field to get runway in use and wind. He also gave me
altimeter, which I started to dial in, and in and in...

I slowly realized this was not right by a long shot.

I vaguely remembered the previous setting, set it back and put her
down.

Turns out that *someone* had set the field altimeter to field elevation

(600 feet) but had dialed it in BACKWARDS past zero to basically -400
feet! The reading was an historic 'hurricane low' pressure, perhaps
only seen before in Death Valley.

Since then, when changing the altimeter, I announce 'off of 2992 for
????'...


HankC


John Harper wrote:
So maybe there really is a geographic aspect to this. It's
true that my instructor taught me to minimize chit chat, and
I do. But really, honestly, in Northern CA where I do most of
my flying I rarely hear them read back, and never do it myself,
and it never seems to cause a problem. Or maybe I just filter
it out when other people do it, I don't know.

(Things that used to drive my instructor mad:

"identing" - "they can see it on the screen, you don't need to tell
them"
"taxiing into position" - "how else are you going to do it"
etc.....)

John


I automatically read back the altimeter setting when ever given,
whether IFR or VFR. Any time I've forgotten to include it in the
read
back they have given it to me again.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com