Metric vs Imperial

[dakkg651]

Just listening to the Radio 2 debate on whether it is a good thing that the EU is allowing us to keep imperial measurements running alongside metric.

For myself, I prefer to order a pint of beer or a pound of apples and to know how many miles to the gallon the old jalopy is doing.

From an aviation point of view, though, is it not a bit stupid to be operating some aircraft with kilograms and others with pounds? I remember an accident in the States a few years ago where a Boeing something or other, with a dicky fuel gauge, was deadsticked into a disused airfield after running out of fuel. This was because the captain had asked for x kgs of fuel to be loaded for the flight but the re-fuellers had loaded x pounds instead.

Should we not bite the bullet and go for a single system?

My feeling is yes.

The rest of Europe should be made to adopt our sensible imperial system and ditch their illogical kilothingies. While they're at it, they should stop driving on the wrong side of the road too!

[wiggy]

While you're at it you might want to try to get the Russians and the Chinese to stop using metric Flight Levels - and everyone in the world to use QNH instead of QFE - Good Luck:E

[oldbeefer]

dak - your friends the French had a tres bonne idea - their alouette 3 helis had IAS in km/hr, height in meters and a max pitch calculator which required height to be input in feet. Oh, and the VSI was in ft/min. Alouetted 2 had IAS in kts and height in meters! And their aircrew were not allowed to drink alcohol before flying, but they did not consider wine to be alcohol! Hey Ho.

[Wader2]

and when we asked the Aussie in-flight caterers for drinks to go with the packed lunch they went all quiet.

Seems the only thing Aussie's drink is in tinnies and they would not let us have any tinnies for in-flight.

I think if they had we might have kept them for post-flight or simply gone u/s. :}

And Le Frogs? At a French radar station all the lunch tables had flasks of wine. The building next to the dining room also had a large hole in the wall from an over enthusiastic Mirage pilot who had bombed them; presumably after lunch.

[ShyTorque]

So what's wrong with having an aircraft that is weighed in kilograms, refuelled in pounds but has a fuel gauge marked in percent? All you need to remeber is that five seconds refuelling off the pump = 1%.

I do have a nav ruler with nautical miles marked on it but have crossed these out and re-marked it with my own scale. As I fly a metric aircraft I think it's safer to measure my charts in kms. I convert these to rods, chains and perches and thus know exactly what fuel % per air nautical furlong I'm getting.

Heights I convert to fathoms. I learned this trick to avoid being caught out by the British Army's 1980s proposal for the new joint services aviation charts of West Germany. They marked contours in feet but put all spot heights in metres; all hills appeared to have craters as the top of the hill was the lowest point. I thought depth measurement seemed more appropriate back then and I never shook the habit. It sounds tricky but for safety I divide by six and add one for the pot, two at night. The built in deliberate error margin ensures that I never meet another aircraft at the same flight level as me.

It's easy when you know how.

Oh well, I'm just off now for a couple of jugs and a firkin.

[Wader2]

Ah Shy Torque, that disqualifies you from the caption competition. I didn't realise it was you with eyes fixated in the camera.

[charliegolf]

Shy
I'd have expected 'leagues' to be there somewhere, since flying with you always seemed to feature a 'valley of death'!:ok:
CG
PS
Mike Wright used to use tads and smidges but I don't recall the conversion factor. Where is he these days?

[TabbyCat]

Oops some people have had problems in the past confusing the two systems ...

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

TC.

[Mike Oxmels]

As a result of the new EU legislation Imperial and metric units will continue to operate alongside each other.

Consequently it will be mandatory to calibrate all accelerometers in 'Dynes per Slug' from 31 Jul 07. The use of 'G' units on accelerometers will be illegal and be rigorously enforced by inspectors with severe penalties for offenders.

[ARINC]

It may please you to know that the A380 is Imperial....:ok:

[Wader2]

Mike Wright used to use tads and smidges but I don't recall the conversion factor. Where is he these days?

Ah yes, "TAD left". I believe there are 10 smidges to a tad.

[ShyTorque]

Imperial Airways?

CG, Valleys of death? But at least you didn't suffer the under wires at 140 kts (did the SOP slow recce bit on the way down, so quite naturally thought it was OK to go a bit faster on the way home. Scared Doris half to death though - he threatened to batter me to death if I ever did that to him again, oops. Mind you, I still smile at the thought of him holding the door handle, waiting for "clear for doors" when the big pylon went past the window at 140 kts :E ). The things young men do when the military system fires you up to fight the advancing hordes, "any day now". I have grown up a bit... :O
MW went plank wings, I think - he did a B737 conversion in the 1990s.

[TMJ]

I've always been taken by the FFF system in which the base units for mass, distance and time are firkin, furlong and fortnight. One furlong per fortnight is, more or less 1 cm per minute which makes it relatively easy to convert for people using more prosaic base units.

[ZH875]

I am glad I kept my Imperial Adjustable Spanner, and didn't waste any beer chits buying one of the new fangled Metric Adjustables. :ok:

[forget]

It may please you to know that the A380 is Imperial....

Is that right? If so, I'm not just pleased I'm bloody delighted. Tell us more. Hate metric :*

Napoleon on the Metre.

“Nothing is more contrary to the organisation of the mind, of the memory, and of the imagination. The new system of weights and measures will be a stumbling block and the source of difficulties for several generations. It's just tormenting the people with trivia”.

[Fluffy Bunny]

It may please you to know that the A380 is Imperial....

Maybe that's because half the engineers working on it are Brits, the other half are still arguing on what language the tech manuals should be written in! or are "out to lunch"

.... From a reliable source in Bremen ;) aaahem.

[Prangster]

Gentlemen may I refer you to the missing fiddle factor in all this. It is of course a gnats, and no I'm not talking about a Valley based scooter of old.

[ORAC]

Hmmm,

I remember, at LU, we had fuel delivered by BR in gallons; supply stored in the BFIs in cubic metres; we loaded the tankers in Lbs or tons; and the receivers took it in Lbs, Kgs or Ltrs.

The F3,of course, having internal fuel in Kgs with external tanks in Ltrs....

Someone asked us to standardise the tankers to use tons - the question went back was that the Metric tonne, the Imperial ton, or the US ton.....

Not to mention distances in Statute miles, Nautical miles and Data miles. And, of course Kilometres.

The most dangerous one is the differences in passing Lat&Long - older aircraft use Degrees/Minutes/Seconds. Most modern ones use Degrees/decimal Minutes (e.g. 54D30M30S North = 54.5050N) But some systems use Degrees/Minutes/decimal Seconds.....

Which sounds dangerous for plotting a target - till you add UTM and MGRS and differing Geodetic datums.

Not to mention the mixing of bearings/alignment in True, Magnetic and Grid north; Degrees and Mils.

I won't even start on the mix speeds when when working in a mixed surface/land/air environment.....

[Chugalug2]

In the 1960's a NATO STANAG was published obliging all parties to calibrate piston engine boost gauges in inches of mercury (i.e. per US practise). Unfortunately RAF aircraft were calibrated in lbs of boost. Even more unfortunately large multi crew aircraft such as the Hastings were flown on approach with both hands on the wheel and power settings called to the Flt. Eng. What had been hitherto impeccable 3 degree glide slopes achieved by a few power changes such as "minus 2", "minus 4", etc, now became violently divergent excursions inversely proportional to P1's ability to do mental arithmetic. For 0 boost was now 32"Hg, -2 became 32+(2x-2), -4 was 32+(2x-4) etc. Eventually learned of course, but all rather unnecessary along with all the other tidy minded nonsense of simplifying weights and measures.
Oh for those very useful tables that were printed on the back covers of school exercise books: Rods, Poles, Perches, Hundredweights, Gills, Pecks, Bushels, Chauldrons, Firkins, Hogsheads, Fagots (you there boy, stop sniggering!). Let us emulate our nautical brethren and their safeguarding of Cables and Fathoms. This new ruling allows us surely to define future equipment in the units mentioned above. Never mind Imperial, bring back Anglo-Saxon measure and resist thereafter all pressure to "standardise"!

[hobie]

I remember the outrage when pounds shillings and pence were to become decimal ...... :eek:

There are still some who think we should have stuck with the old lsd ........... :{

[forget]

I remember the outrage when pounds shillings and pence were to become decimal ......

Do NOT confuse decimalisation with metrication. One makes sense - the other, quite clearly, does not. :*

[Fluffy Bunny]

As long as one can still spend a penny rather than having to Euronate, I think most will be happy! :) :}

[hobie]

Do NOT confuse decimalisation with metrication. One makes sense - the other, quite clearly, does not.

Now I am confused ..... :p

miles .... yards ..... feet ..... inches ..... stones ..... pounds .... ounces etc etc .... ermmmmm .....nice :{

[ARINC]

Is that right? If so, I'm not just pleased I'm bloody delighted. Tell us more. Hate metric

7/16ths is difficult to say in German......


Maybe that's because half the engineers working on it are Brits, the other half are still arguing on what language the tech manuals should be written in! or are "out to lunch"

.... From a reliable source in Bremen aaahem.

They're multilingual

...From an impeccable source at Hamburg.......

[k3k3]

Siebensechzehntel..... just rolls off the tongue (7/16ths):hmm:

[forget]

Now I am confused ..... miles .... yards ..... feet ..... inches .....etc .... ermmmmm .....nice

Don't bother yourself with these modern derivatives - stick with Cubits. :ok:

Been around for 10,000 years - at least.

For navigational purposes the Earth is divided into 360 degrees longitude, with each degree divided into 60 minutes, and each minute divided into sixty seconds.

One minute of arc, from the centre of the earth, is 6,080 of today's feet, or 72,960 inches. 72,960 divided by 18.24 = 4,000. So a minute of arc is the clumsy number of 6,080 feet, or exactly 4,000 Cubits.

The equatorial circumference of the Earth is 131,328,000 feet, or 86,400,000 Cubits. Taking this further, 1,000 Cubits is precisely the distance traversed by an overhead sun in one second of time.

18.24 is anything but a 'normal' number. The circumference of the Earth is 131,328,000 feet. At some time in history the original navigators saw it as 86,400,000 Cubits, which happens to be, divided by one thousand, the number of seconds in a day. Perfect correlation between time and distance, the two major elements of navigation.

[samuraimatt]

Ahh but did you know that Cubit, is from the Latin word cubitus, meaning the lower arm and it is used to translate the original Biblical Hebrew word pronounced am-mah which coincidentally meant the forearm. So, based on the length of a man's arm from elbow to finger tips, the cubit is one of the major biblical weights and measures. Although the precise length of the Biblical cubit is unknown today, it's estimated to have been approximately 17½ to 20½ inches, with Scriptural references to both a "common" cubit and a "long" cubit.

[forget]

Ahh but did you know that Cubit, is from the Latin word cubitus, meaning the lower arm and it is used to translate the original Biblical Hebrew word pronounced am-mah which coincidentally meant the forearm.

samuraimatt. With all due respect, and having carefully considered my response - - bollix.

:) PS. Ask me tomorrow and I'll tell you exactly where Atlantis was. Really :ok:

[samuraimatt]

The cubit is based on measuring by comparing – especially cords and textiles, but also for timbers and stones – to ones forearm length.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubit

[vecvechookattack]

wow. I thought that was a genuine dit until you added the link to lieipedia

[samuraimatt]

Try this one then

http://thesaurus.maths.org/mmkb/entry.html?action=entryById&id=3210

[sikeano]

I was watching BBC news yesterday, And they mangaed to find a Street Trader in South London who confirmed what we all knew, Dumb Stupid :mad:
And what made me laugh was he said he never understood the Kilos and it was all confusing . Poor man not everything is apples and pears for this geezer, But he was trading in good old kilos for the past 7 years, How confusing it must have been to him, Surely he deserves a place in MOD think tank team :p

[oldbeefer]

Poor man not everything is apples and pears for this geezer

If he was a greengrocer, should that not have read "apple's and pear's"?

[Roadster280]

Surely the problem isn't the units themselves, it's the practice of forcing people to use unfamiliar units. Most people over a certain age would have an intrinsic "feel" for how far a mile is. Ask the same people how far 1.6km is, and they may well struggle.

Forcing change is inviting disaster. Imagine if the RN gave up using fathoms for measuring sea depth. They might end up running destroyers into rocks or something.

[steve_oc]

The cable (200 yards) is of course the only sensible measurement of distance. There are 10 cables in a short nautical mile (6000 feet). Even the French in ASW used them, although it was strange to hear the term "kiloyards" bandied about.

[forget]

Spot on steve - but let’s use proper Nautical Miles, 6,080 feet; 72,960 inches.

Then we divide by 18.24 to give us Cubits – the only sensible measure on the planet.

Proves my point don’t you think? :ok:

PS. While you've got the calculator out divide 1 Radian, 57.3, by a Cubit.

Good stuff eh? Discovered by the Greeks :rolleyes: - cods.

[cornish-stormrider]

Sitting scratching me head. all I know is that where I currently work we have several major machinery suppliers. One is all imperial and the rest are all metric. Try getting any commonality of spares......utter nightmare. Fedex love us for having extremely urgent deliveries from wyoming to devon!!

I'd like a 9 and 64 seventy fifths bolt with a thread pitch of 1 and 16/95millionths american standard pipe.....

its all arse.

you know where you stand with m6 m8 m10 etc.

[ericferret]

True story

Man goes to builders merchant to buy sand for a DIY project.

Can I have a hundreweight of sand (112lbs ).

Sorry sir we don't sell it like that.

Quick rethink, okay can I have 50 kilos.

Sorry sir we don't sell it like that.

Well how do you sell it?

By the shovel!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ericferret]

I think the Snap On helicopters are best.

Why Snap On? Because they get to sell you 2 tool kits instead of one.

BO 105, AS 355, Metric airframe imperial engine.
S76A+ Imperial airframe metric engine.

If metric is so good why did CFM build in imperial?

[wokkameister]

Can't see the Taliban caring whether you drop a 5000Lb or 2280Kg bomb on them. So I suppose some parts of the world have accepted metric in good spirit!

[BEagle]

One of the best imperial/metric cock-ups cost NASA around $125 million....

A NASA investigation confirmed earlier reports that aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin botched the design of critical navigation software for the ill-fated Mars Climate Orbiter. While flight computers on the ground did calculations based on pounds of thrust per second, the spacecraft's computer used metric system newtons. A check to make sure the values were compatible was never done.....:rolleyes:

So when the Orbiter tried to establish its orbit, instead it either hit the planet or burned up in the atmosphere....:uhoh:

Almost like the ba 747/TriStar cock-up. Allegedly, when ba was rationalising its fleet, it compatred fuel usage of the RB211s in the two aircraft. They found that the RB211 in the TriStar burned X lb/hr, whereas in the 747 it was Y lb/hr. "Hurrah", cried the beancounters, "since X > Y, we'll can the TriStars".

So they did.

Then someone pointed out that 3X < 4Y......:hmm:

Seemingly the beancounters had overlooked the fact that the 747 has more engines than a TriStar...:D

[Zoom]

How about we go metric but call it British Standard Metric (BSM). Then, to save face with the Euroworld, we give give the soon-to-be-unemployed Blair the job of promoting BSM as a totally new system, not invented by anyone else. After all, he has already proved himself rather good at that sort of thing.

[wokkameister]

Hmmm...involving Blair to improve a situation. I refer you to my earlier post especially the 5000lb bomb bit.

Seems he may have a use afterall....'Here Tony, catch this!'

[Brian Abraham]

ericferret, CFM is a 50/50 parnership between Snecma Moteurs of France, and GE in the U.S.A. Just be thankful the front half is not metric and the rear imperial.

[Pontius Navigator]

The Officers' Club at Akrotiri had been on the books for years. Eventually it was decided, build it or can it.

My boss was given the job. The architect drew up plans for a phased building approach:

Front door, bar, pool, the rest to follow as funds permitted. Funny but we never thought of Akrotiri as a one-off tour. Anyway the plans came in.

The plans went to PSA and they did the costing. For PSA the costings were very low and it was decided that we would go for the lot as we could afford the toilets, showers, lounge etc.

Down on the site the builder set out the building. Very small he said. Are you sure you only want a 2ft 6in front door. Doh!

canned

[ARINC]

How about we go metric but call it British Standard Metric (BSM). Then, to save face with the Euroworld, we give give the soon-to-be-unemployed Blair the job of promoting BSM as a totally new system, not invented by anyone else. After all, he has already proved himself rather good at that sort of thing.



Now if we can just get them to rename the Euro, The Pound. We'd adopt it overnight.

[ericferret]

Brian Abraham

Not to worry, some of my old spanners are so worn they have a tolerance of plus or minus half a mill and will fit anything close!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I also seem to remember that the army Gazelles (metric) had a couple of a/f screws on the crew seats.

I also watched an unamed european maintenance organisation fitting a radio
mod into a police Squirrel (all metric) using a/f hardware. The strange thing was that when I pointed this out they couldn't see why I was concerned.

[ericferret]

I always thought that when we went to a decimal currency we should have gone 10 pence to a shilling, 10 shillings to a pound. The mathmatical efect would have been the same as the pence pounds option but we would have retained the ability to confound our enemies, (germans, french, well everybody really) with a confusing currency.

[ZH875]

ericferret, CFM is a 50/50 parnership between Snecma Moteurs of France, and GE in the U.S.A. Just be thankful the front half is not metric and the rear imperial.

Ahh, that explains it, the whining comes from France, and the hot air from the USA.

[cornish-stormrider]

:D :D :D
To use crude net text type speech......ROTFLMFAO

[Brian Abraham]

I thought it was the French who blew hot AND cold. Sorry. :oh:

[FE Hoppy]

One of the best imperial/metric cock-ups cost NASA around $125 million....

A NASA investigation confirmed earlier reports that aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin botched the design of critical navigation software for the ill-fated Mars Climate Orbiter. While flight computers on the ground did calculations based on pounds of thrust per second, the spacecraft's computer used metric system newtons. A check to make sure the values were compatible was never done.....

So when the Orbiter tried to establish its orbit, instead it either hit the planet or burned up in the atmosphere....



This is NASAs take on it. I have friends at LM who say they asked NASA if they wanted metric or "English" as they call it? The reply from NASA was whatever you like.

Still makes me laugh.

[sikeano]

Quote
"I also watched an unamed european maintenance organisation fitting a radio
mod into a police Squirrel (all metric) using a/f hardware. The strange thing was that when I pointed this out they couldn't see why I was concerned."

I don't blame them the logic is they are not the one's who are going to use it :ugh:
Typical Continent Attitude Sod the rest as long as we are all right
(I might just have opened a can of worms with that comment ) :8

[ericferret]

You dont have to work in metric and imperial for a fine cock up.

During the war the navy launched a a number of RAF fighters at maximum range from a carrier to Malta. The idea being to avoid the enemy bombers based in Italy.

Trouble was the RAF quoted their max range in statute miles whereas the navy were operating in nautical miles.

A number of pilots ended up with wet feet.