Altimetry is rather like alchemy, very troubling stuff!
A pilot wouldn't really use QFE when flying in the vicinity of an airfield. he would set those numbers on final approach so that his altimeter would read zero at the touchdown point/reference point. On a subsequent go around, as the gear came up, he would normally reset QNH.
You wouldn't use QFE at an airfield such as FAJS, that's Johannesburg. Most altimeters don't wind down far enough to enable an altimeter to read zero when the airfield elevation is about 5,000ft.
The British have had a love affair with QFE for decades. Most of the rest of the world wonders why. It's yet another altimeter setting to be confused with reality when the going gets tough. Perhaps it's the Light Brigade syndrome, suicide the hard way, such a divinely English way to die........
