UTC Time conundrum

[eoincarey]

Hey ppl

Im getting really confused about the times that appear on the weather forecast from the MET. It gives it in UT, is that London time, or are we an hour ahead or behind this? Also, does our time difference with UTC change throughout the year? Cheers for any advice people.
Eoin Carey

[skydriller]

UTC is the European (French) way of saying GMT.

ie, for the UK, 0800 UTC is 9am due to it being british summer time. Similarly, for here in France 0800 UTC is 10am.

Regards, SD..

[foxmoth]

UTC is the same as GMT, also known as 'Zulu' time. British winter hours are the same time zone, British Summer time (BST) is 'Alpha' time - ie. 1 hour ahead .
To remember which way the clocks go just remember the adage "spring forwards, fall back".
Aviation sticks mainly to UTC, so flight plan times, met forecasts etc. are all done using this and need to be converted in the summer for use with your watch (though personally I use a watch with 3 time zone displays anyway). so in the summer subtract an hour from your watch to get to UTC - in the winter of course you are already in UTC (UK time).
nb. for SDs post - French summer time is "B" time zone, and so it goes round the world, missing a couple of letters ("Q" is one missed if I remember correctly).:8

[Rattus]

I think the missing letters are I and O, to prevent confusion with 1 and 0.
I can't be doing with all this bu99ering about with clocks anyway - I stay on Z all year and just get up an hour earlier in the summer - saves a lot of confusion.

[10 DME ARC]

In the aviation world GMT does not exist any more UTC (Universal time co-ordinate ??? pardon my french). Its the same as GMT, the name was changed to please the french!
:)

[TheOddOne]

Here's a fantastic link that explains our relationship to time measurement very well...

A Few facts about GMT & UTC (http://www.apparent-wind.com/gmt-explained.html)

A very good read and takes some of the natural xenophobia out of a French title - Universel Temps Coordinné

I think anyone who has anything to do with navigation, pilots of land, sea or air, should make a regular pilgrimage to Greenwich to the observatory to see how our understanding of time has evolved. If you're British, than you can take special pride in how we gave the world the essential knowledge to be able to get about on our planet.

Cheers,
TheOddOne

[englishal]

Isn't there something wierd about the UTC and GMT time zones, as in UTC -8 is the opposite of GMT -8 ?

I.e. LA is GMT -8, where as UTC -8 puts you in Singapore or somewhere.....

Seem to remember this from my dabbles with the Solaris operating system a few years ago.....or maybe I was just dreaming :D

[eoincarey]

Cheers for your replies. I think I understand it now. Wouldnt it have been a lot easier if we could have ignored French sensibilities and stuck with good old GMT instead of renaming it!
Cheers
EC

[spekesoftly]

Wouldnt it have been a lot easier if we could have ignored French sensibilities and stuck with good old GMT instead of renaming it!


You mean like PPRuNe? ;)


"All times are GMT" :ok:

[skydriller]

Wouldnt it have been a lot easier if we could have ignored French sensibilities and stuck with good old GMT instead of renaming it!

...Actually, alot of the french (ie.most) still refer to it as GMT in my aeroclub, funny how certain groups of poeple are resistant to change.....;)

Regards, SD..

[Rattus]

French title notwithstanding, at least UTC is still measured from Greenwich.
It's worth remembering that (thanks in no small part to the efforts of a Few young fighter pilots in the summer of 1940) we could now be measuring Longitude and time from a Berlin Meridian, and that by 1945, charts had already been published in anticipation of an Axis victory.
R