Demise of the Millibar.

[dakkg651]

I see that from November, the use of the Millibar is forbidden.

We have all got to kow-tow to some foreign bloke called Hector Pascal even though he uses exactly the same system of measuring air pressure!

The change will cost a fortune that the CAA will undoubtably pass on to their customers.

Another victory for the frogs perhaps?

[reynoldsno1]

hPa have been in use for years and years ..... this is not a recent or sudden change

[EESDL]

Millibar had to go - it couldn't take the pressure......she was feeling under the weather.........

[Exascot]

I see that from November, the use of the Millibar is forbidden.


Where was this announced?

What about inches? Or will that have to be changed to centimetres?

[Helen49]

A needless change of terminology. The system aint broke, no need to fix it. Just one heck of a lot of documentation changes!

[sangiovese.]

And I thought it might be a thread about the demise of the military bar and the 2 can rule ....

:rolleyes:

[teeteringhead]

OMG! :eek: ..as the youth put it these days...

..... so 1013 mb will now be ...... err ...1013 hPa - how will we ever manage ....

[D120A]

I see this as a huge conspiracy by the coalition government. You wait and see, soon we will not be allowed to call them the brothers Miliband, we will have to refer to them as HectoRascals. :rolleyes:

[Pontius Navigator]

They'll be getting rid of centigrade next and using someat else for miles per hour.

It'll really tie us up in knots.

[green granite]

It seems to be a long term goal of science to remove any term that might just possibly useful in it's descriptive nature and replace it with something that means nothing to anyone for example foot-pounds into newtons.

[Tankertrashnav]

Are the cousins still using inches?

[cazatou]

Ttn

I don't know - but their Pints are still a short measure!!!

[Blacksheep]

The Milly Bar? In Changi Village? I stopped using it in 1971.

[Whenurhappy]

It's part of the New World Order to creat a race of zombies who accept that we will have an EU Army to patrol our streets and stop using English words and insist on Sharia Law and the return of President Blair and the Davos Economics clacque controlled by the Vatican. Meanwhile, the old buffers down at the Legion will be banned from wearing blazers with Regimental and Squadron badges because this doesn't comply with EU legislation and the world 'Royal' will be dropped and replaced with Federal and....(sound of black Omega pulling up outside)*



* Oh no it wasn't. It was a Community Care Ambulance responding to a PPruner call.

[Ali Qadoo]

Actually, it's a new EU Directive that's been introduced by a French MEP, Monsieur Pithblot.

[Vortex81]

Actually, it's a new EU Directive that's been introduced by a French MEP, Monsieur Pithblot.

He must have been pithed when he blotted that one out.

[ShyTorque]

I'm just not going to let this get to me.

However, as a protest I'm not ever going to use the word "hectopascal" on the radio (never said "millibar" before either, come to think about it).

So when I read back the altimeter setting numbers they think I'll be going along with their little plan and setting their nice, shiny little, EU mandated "hectopascals".

But all along I'll be thinking "Millibars, yeh!"

Sometimes I'm so rebellious I even surprise myself.... :E

[cazatou]

Checking in our very large French/English dictionary the French "Hectopascals" converts to "Millibars" in English.

[sitigeltfel]

Millibars? Full of expensive booze and overpriced snacks. The cause of many arguments when checking out in the morning.

[Two's in]

Are the cousins still using inches?

Yes, still inches. How else would you remember 29.92 is the standard atmsosphere?

As cazatou suggests, Beer is still short measured in 16 fl oz pints, but that's largely academic because it all comes in 12 oz bottles.

Amazingly a mile is still 5,280 feet, but for some reason yards seem to have fallen into disrepute as unit of measure - and nobody has a clue what a meter(re) is, other than something for measuring electricity consumption.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Amazingly a mile is still 5,280 feet>>

But there's another cunning one which is 6080 feet!

I wonder which chinless wonder decided to dispense with mB?

[Final 3 Greens]

I learned to fly in 1993.

The exams featured hectopascals then.

Get over it, move on.

[cazatou]

Two's in

" nobody has a clue what a meter(re) is."

Not into Poetry or Music then?

[Pontius Navigator]

<<Amazingly a mile is still 5,280 feet>>

But there's another cunning one which is 6080 feet!

I wonder which chinless wonder decided to dispense with mB?

Actually there isn't. The nautical mile is actually 1852 metres. Yup, they got that one too.

[SASless]

A needless change of terminology. The system aint broke, no need to fix it. Just one heck of a lot of documentation changes!

Perhaps there are some bureaucrats kin in the Printing Business!

[bingofuel]

There was othing wrong with pecks, rods and bushels, paid for in £sd but that all changed as well..............................

[scarecrow450]

At the moment if a pressure is below 1000 MB we have to say MB after the figures in case any colonials are on freq and think its 29X91 instead of 991 MB !

(If you are reading this after the change over please insert hPa instead of MB !)

[davejb]

Amazingly enough,
the Pascal is the SI unit of pressure, and school kids (in Scotland at least) are taught to use SI units - this provides a standardisation that I would argue is essential in high risk businesses (such as the RAF - Violence by Appointment to the Queen, est 1918) to ensure that people don't mess up needlessly (people should be allowed to make their own mistakes without help).

Given the relative ease of converting between the Pascal and the old currency of the millibar, I'd call this one a no brainer. Being part of Europe, and being (now, thanks Cameron) totally dependent on European forces for such essentials as MPA, carriers, errm ships, errrum soldiers, wolf cubs...it's not a bad idea to get used to the SI units that have, after all, supposedly ruled the rest of Europe since I was a wee kiddie.

Anyway, that's my 2d worth!

[Flash2001]

If I remember correctly, the SI discourages the use of hecto, centi, deci etc. It advocates that only prefixes separated by 10^3 be used.

After an excellent landing you can use the airplane again!

[Willard Whyte]

Good job E-3Ds still use a real measurement - inches - to set their altimeters. Shame the table in the FRCs has inaccuracies in the conversion to metric though.

I would guess our RJs* will use the same, anyone recently back from Nebraska care to confirm? Has the flight deck spec been finalized though?

* mark my words, they will always be known as RJ, no matter how many sodding people whine about it being an arsesniffer, I mean airseeker.

[Pontius Navigator]

and before we know it, some fool will suggest we go from fuel in gallons to some other funny measurements.

[Flash2001]

How about decifirkins? Fairly close to an imperial gallon.

After an excellent landing etc...

[P6 Driver]

Maybe the Q Code will get a revision at this rate!

[NutherA2]

They'll be getting rid of centigrade next

This "centigrade", Pontius, is it anything like Celsius?:confused:

[Dengue_Dude]

Centigrade might be millibarred . . . :)

[Two's in]

Well that's another idiosyncrasy here of course - the use of a temperature scale where water freezes at 32 units, boils at 212 units and beer can only be served at 40 units.

[Landroger]

Amazingly a mile is still 5,280 feet, but for some reason yards seem to have fallen into disrepute as unit of measure - and nobody has a clue what a meter(re) is, other than something for measuring electricity consumption.

A Metre is thirty-nine and three-eighths inches. :) Personally, I am a chain, hundredweight, fortnight man myself and simply cannot visualise SI Units. :rolleyes: Pressure is only ever 'sq/in'. In one of his many fascinating programmes, 'Our Fred' (Dibnah) referred to the pressure in a locomotive boiler as; "Twoo 'undred and fifty pownd upon the skwere inch." :ok:

Roger.

[Rossian]

.....cubits. All these old measures were based on the human body which most folk can relate to almost instinctively. Who can honestly say they can "feel" a metre? A foot - easy. Stand beside a horse - hands tell you how tall it is. Inch?- a thumb will give it to you near enough. Even old French carpenters used the "pouce" (thumb).
When things are referenced to the wavelength of some gas in a vacuum there is no real connection to the way we experience the world around us at all.

The Ancient Mariner

[Flash2001]

When you put gas in a vacuum doesn't it ruin the vacuum?

[Pontius Navigator]

Amazingly enough,
the Pascal is the SI unit of pressure, and school kids (in Scotland at least) are taught to use SI units

. . .

that have, after all, supposedly ruled the rest of Europe since I was a wee kiddie.

Anyway, that's my 2d worth!

This was a sensible and serious thread until you brought fact, logic, reason and Napoleon into the equation. Just because the Scots like the French. Pah, humbug.

:)

[ExAscoteer]

and before we know it, some fool will suggest we go from fuel in gallons to some other funny measurements.

What, like Lbs perchance? :)

[Tankertrashnav]

And don't forget....

.....cubits. All these old measures were based on the human body which most folk can relate to almost instinctively.


And from another thread on JB there is the "Slasher", which is 7 7/8"

(Or so he would have us believe :=)

[davejb]

This was a sensible and serious thread until you brought fact, logic, reason and Napoleon into the equation. Just because the Scots like the French. Pah, humbug.

I'm English, natch....

This hector chap is indeed not welcomed, scientific notation rules ok - I doubt somehow that anyone is going to be cleared to fly at 3 times ten to the power of 2 metres anytime soon though.

Metres - the French were so pleased with their new measurement that they sent a chappy off to the New World with a standard metre so that their republican allies could share the benefits of the new logic. His ship was battered by storms, blown into quite the wrong bit of the Americas (ie the bit we were in charge of)...everything that could go wrong short of being sold double glazing wrecked his mission.... which is why the spams to this day have measurements that make the British look sane, as they gave up waiting for him to arrive.

Dave
:}

[jamesdevice]

I've been told that there is a push from within the ESA to get all aircraft to have thermometers / temperature gauges marked in Kelvins. Apparently its to enable technicians to easily transfer from aircraft to space engineering, where everything is much colder.
The ultimate aim is to have schools and universities teach in Kelvins, not Celsius
You just need to add 273.15 to your Celsius reading to get the Kelvin value

[Pom Pax]

There must be a few Naval Gentleman about who wish they had stuck with fathoms as they would have had twice as much water underneath them.

[Pontius Navigator]

Ah, but when they draw 30 feet on a chart marked in metres they might get a Nottingham moment.

[alisoncc]

Jeez you guys, you had me really worried. Thought a millibar was a different size version of a mini-bar. I would be really concerned if we were talking about the demise of the mini-bar. Now that would have a quite significant impact on all PPruners.

[teeteringhead]

If I remember correctly, the SI discourages the use of hecto ... except when it suits them, like the hectare ........

[ian16th]

I'm still trying to educate colonists down here not so say that a car has 'thirty thousand kilometres' on the clock, but to say 'thirty megametres'! :ok:

I also carry in my glove box, an old tyre pressure gauge, that is calibrated in Lbs/Sq Inch.

[Wensleydale]

Bring back the universal measurement of the Firkin....


(Too Firkin heavy; too firkin far etc).

[AR1]

I still haven't got over the loss of the Aztec bar.

[Pontius Navigator]

Don't forget the ginger beer with AF and Whitworth. Nothing like standardisation.

Still, the Canadians have it hacked - ice on a lake one metre deep with only a few feet of water below that.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Oh please, do not go there. I have to teach SI units and conversions at the University of Prince Edward Island. Patience of a saint, I tell you...
If I have to teach hectopascals, some of them will explode.

My favourite localism is "I'll be a second..", which apparently is the opposite of the (unused) "I won't be a second"

[B Fraser]

Next time you get one of those johnny foreigner types on the radio, give him the dew point in Kelvin until he stops sodding about.

I remember hearing one transmission where a cousin was cleared down to 6,000 feet, QFE 998

"Can I have that in inches please"

"Certainly sir, descend to 72,000 inches"

[Landroger]

Oh please, do not go there. I have to teach SI units and conversions at the University of Prince Edward Island. Patience of a saint, I tell you...
If I have to teach hectopascals, some of them will explode.

My favourite localism is "I'll be a second..", which apparently is the opposite of the (unused) "I won't be a second"

Errr ...... didn't the Gimli Glider run out of splosh because of confusion between an aeroplane system designed, built and calibrated in pounds and a fuel distribution system calibrated in litres, because the guvmint wanted it that way? :rolleyes:

I'll get me coat. :)

ROger.

[Pontius Navigator]

Much more recently I wrote a small spreadsheet for a hot and dusty place where you entered whatever fuel the aircraft required - pints, pounds, litres or whatever and it converted it to whatever the bowser delivered, US G, kilos or whatever.

Given the short tours over the last 10 years . . .

[Rossian]

....there's a UNIVERSITY in PEI??

At the Summerside Legion one Friday night a loooooong time ago I had difficulty converting UK dancing to Maritimes social mores "We don't do that here!!"

Crashed and burned again, so got VV tiddlwed instead. (Yes I DID mean that).

The Ancient mariner

[Two's in]

Errr ...... didn't the Gimli Glider run out of splosh because of confusion between an aeroplane system designed, built and calibrated in pounds and a fuel distribution system calibrated in litres

Not quite. The fuel indicating system (which would have given them a value in Litres) was u/s, so the groundcrew and flight crew were required to do a dipstick check, which was in Litres. The manual entry FMS calculations required a value in Kg, so they converted Litres to Kg. Unfortunately, having only recently started using the metric system, both the groundcrew and flight crew used the conversion factor for Litres to Lbs (1.77) instead of Liters to Kg (0.803). The net result was they departed with 22,300 lbs of fuel thinking they had 22,300 Kg (they must have been impressed with the climb out performance) and it all went quiet about halfway down the leg.

Captain got top marks for airmanship and a demerit for maths, but as always, there was a whole trail of missed opportunities to avoid the accident.

[oxenos]

Blacksheep - surprised anyone remembers Milly's in Changi. Always seemed to induce severe attacks of amnesia.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The 'Gimli glider' was not the greatest advert for Canadian maths skills:uhoh:
Most Canucks count in 12's as that's how the beer comes.
By sheer chance, I shall be in Gimli in a few weeks - have to raise a 0.477 kg to the remarkable flying skills shown. The Captain was an experienced glider pilot and the co- had flow out of Gimli (by then closed) in the RCAF. Always reminds me of the 'Life of Brian' line " you lucky, lucky b@st@rds!"

..and UPEI is one of the top 10 primarily undergraduate universities in Canada - we don't do much (and some of that IS, admittedly, just counting lobsters) but we do it well!

[ian16th]

PN,

Spreadsheets!!! When I wor a lad....

In 1957 whist serving with the RAF Liaison party at Base Aérienne 125 Istres, we had to re-fuel transiting a/c.

The favorite was the Beverley!

This wonderful a/c had fuel gauges calibrated in Pounds. But they were considered to be inaccurate, so we had to check with the dipsticks, which were calibrated in Imperial Gallons.

Our Avgas came from French Shell bowsers that were calibrated in litres!

In those far off pre-computer days all of the reconciliation calculations were very strictly 'back of a fag packet' jobs.

But, we kept 'em flying.:ok:

[airborne_artist]

We have a wonderful way of dealing with the imperial/decimal divide, and it goes back a long way.

Pere Artist went into a hardware shop not far North of Pompey about 35 years ago, looking for a length of copper pipe. He asked for 10 feet of pipe;

"Sorry Sir, we don't sell it in feet any more, it's gone metric".

"Fine, I'll have three metres".

"Would that be in half-inch or three-quarters diameter, Sir?" :ugh:

[Groundgripper]

We have a wonderful way of dealing with the imperial/decimal divide, and it goes back a long way.

I'll second that - forty one years ago I went into a timber merchants in Derby after a piece of threequarter by twelve inch parana pine. Told "Ah, we're metric now, that'll be nineteen millimetres by thirty centimetres, sir". "OK", says I, "how much?"

"Half a crown a foot" came the reply:ugh:

GG