mocoman, thank you for your input ... we are in danger of becoming mired in this one, so I will only respond to one point. You say
Both situations attempt to trap human factor errors (1012/1021) on the communication side.
This of course is an admirable aim, but I would argue that simple repetition is inappropriate and hardly likely to be effective. Firstly, an error is highly unlikely when departing, as any professional worth his salt is going to set the QNH and then check that airfield elevation is correctly displayed, within normal altimeter tolerances. That should take care of any significant (i.e. transpositional) errors which could cause, say, an altitude bust. Smaller errors of 1mb (27' at msl) or so, if they occur, are actually insignificant and not likely to cause such a problem. Secondly, when arriving, as
fireflybob has most eloquently said, the initial descent clearance to an altitude is always given together with the QNH, which of course is read back at that time; no additional readback of the QNH is required when acknowledging the arrival ATIS.
Anyway, I digress; the thread topic concerns the unnecessary repetition of QNH with ATIS acknowledgement and I remain totally unconvinced that this particular procedure actually serves to improve safety.
JD
