Originally Posted by
arrak0z
Hello. I have got a following question from my instructor and I would appreciate a little help
Do you fly from an airfield that’s quite close to sea level, by any chance? Not much difference between QNH and QFE?
Try and imagine you’re sat on the end of the runway. If you have the correct QNH set on the altimeter, you will read the elevation of the airfield. If you have the correct QFE set, the altimeter will read 0ft.
Now imagine you’ve accidentally set the wrong QNH/QFE. If you’ve made the error in one sense (you’ve set a higher pressure than intended) what will the altimeter read? If you set it in the other sense, what would it read then? Which scenario would be more dangerous to you if you were in the air, maybe if there had been some unforecast fog or low cloud?
I think maybe that’s what the instructor was getting at.
Oh, and not all flying clubs have a crew room with enough people in to ask questions like this, or pilots friendly enough to ask, so don’t worry about asking questions on here. 😉