QNH/QFE?
Excuse my ignorance if this question is blindingly out of order (I am but a simple mil/private flying person)..............
I have been trying to understand a feature of a future mil platform that has me confused. I have always been used to flying on QFE for approach, either when flying purely VFR or from the FAF. I understand (from looking at the specs for an offered civil FMS being used in a couple of future mil platforms) that you civil guys don't ever use QFE and that as a consequence civil FMS do not even include the ability to enter QFE.
First off, is it actually true that a modern civil FMS has no dedicated provision for entering QFE? (other than the "bodge" approach of entering QFE in the QNH labelled entry). I've no personal experience of flying an FMS equipped aircraft, being a strictly steam instrument person.
If this is the case, does it cause any problems when flying a manual VFR approach if the alt doesn't read height above airfield altitude? (my guess here is that it is something you adapt to, just like our us mil colleagues who fly around like this all the time).
The final question has to do with GPWS (or in this case EGPWS) height settings. I assume that a GPWS that isn't triggered by a rad alt signal must rely on an accurate pressure setting. If this is the case, how do they cope if you always fly on QNH? Don't you get a lot of false GPWS alerts? (or perhaps risk being closer to the ground than you might wish before getting one.......).
Sorry again if these seem daft questions, but I have no experience of flying heavy stuff and am guessing that this forum has more than a few experts in the subject.
Thanks in anticipation,
VP