Last weekend I had an interesting experience at a samll airport...

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

I dialed 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 and altitude, set it back
and managed to land.

Turns out that someone had set the field altimeter to field elevation
(600 feet) but had dialed it in BACWARDS past zero to basically -400
feet! The reading was a historically hurricane low pressure, perhaps
only seen before in Death Valley.

At least for the next couple of flights, when changing altimeter
settings, I'll think to myself 'off of 2992 for ????'...


Cheers,
HankC