The reason the UK mil use QFE is because they do not like change. It's as simple as that.
Its all been said before but QNH references your altitude with respect to surrounding terrain (not just height above the airfield reference point or runway threshold) and also the base of any controlled airspace above. Both of these things are very useful to know. The only time I used QFE I think was going to Northolt and also when I converted my FAA licence back in the UK and I think it was all part of making the IR test awkward. QFE/ airfield QNH / regional QNH/ standard1013- with all sorts of different transitions to boot, changing the settings every 5 minutes it seemed and that idiotic practice of setting the altimeters to completely different settings at various times in the flight. So, with two altimeters in a spamcan if one is faulty how can you tell a fault even exists? but then of course without a third standby how would you tell which one? The jet aircraft I flew all had 3 pressure alts and nearly all had rad alt so QFE was totally redundant, it told us nothing, in fact using it would limit our "altitude awareness". Don't supa-dupa military aircraft have rad alt's?
Last edited by Private jet; 10th Jul 2014 at 13:34.
Reason: add