Use of QFE in Australia
 

I haven't flown for a while so I'm not up to date with all that goes on these days so please forgive me if this question seems a bit dumb.

A post in another thread (repitition of QNH) made me wonder about QFE. How common is the usage of QFE? Does anyone use it? If so, where, when and why?

Thanks,

Cn

QFE comes with a British passport. We colonials never saw the need (as so many Poms, particularly of the ex-RAF variety, apparently do) of having the altimeter read zero at touchdown.

We prefer QNH, where the altimeter reads an altitude that will let us know how high we are in relation to any hills we may be sharing the airspace with, and we seem to be able to cope with the incredibly difficult mental arithmetic involved in adding 1000' (or 1500' if you prefer) to the height above sea level of the field we're landing on when planning our circuit.

It's mostly used these days in activities that require a reference to the ground rather than a common reference to each other like in the wide open sky. A skydiver is a good example, his automatic activation device uses the QFE to determine an approximate ground level. Also our Russian friends like to use QFE because they are still flying aircraft that were invented before radio alti's were.

Nah, skydivers just say everything in terms of AGL and the jump pilots just adjust it to a suitable Altitude for their use. Never heard a skydiver or jump pilot use the term QFE yet!

Most of the time that's true, however a couple of times it isn't - the Westwind CFIT accident at Alice Springs comes to mind.

Not advocating QFE, mind - never used it myself.

I trained with an aerobatic instructor who used QFE.

I trained with an aerobatic instructor who used vaseline.

I trained with an instructor who couldn't spell QFE.

The only time I've come across the use of QFE was when operating through Tashkent, in Uzbekistan. There's some rather large mountains around there.

They didn't happen to spell it QNH, did they? ;)

18Wheeler
 

Concur.

Moscow, St.Petersburg, Almaty, Tashkent, et al, all use QFE. No Probs, just don't use LNAV/VNAV after TX.
But of course you can always request QNH and is usually given!

JO.

I have seen it used on night spraying in Oz, makes sense there when all you have is Airspeed, Turn coodinator (usually only the ball works) and Alt.

Sorree...
RTFQ!
Sheesh....

JO

The gliding fraternity used to use QFE but I think they have been preaching QNH for 10 years or so.

I use QFE for every flight, but never go above 300'AGL and always takeoff and land at the same place.

One day soon the boss will ask me to fly somewhere else and i'll probably smack into the ground trying to get the altimeter to read 0 on touch down....or i'll stall 400' up flaring out onto to clear blue nothing. :ok:

The Russians and Chinese still use it. For someone used to QNH, and with a really low transition level, it increases the work load a lot (and the chances of making a serious error).

Whilst overflying China and Russia, I've often thought how 'interesting' it would be to make a diversion with a serious technical problem to one of the more remote Chinese or Russian high altitude airfields (where they use QFE) and just to make it really interesting, have to do an NPA.

FWIW I've been to a few places in China (Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Hangzhou) and none of them used QFE.
Other places there may well though.

I got my PPL in the UK (living there, but I'm an Aussie), I havn't converted my PPL to Aus yet. (I won't get into my gripe about the lack of a club atmosphere here...it might be just where I'm located)

In the QNH was set when departing, but QFE is given before joining the circuit at all the airfields I visited. Also when taking off for circuits QFE would be given.

Personally, whilst it made things marginally easier whilst learning, I felt like ultimately it complicated things by adding another point of procedural error and altitude conflict.

Murphy

Hi All.

Thanks for the prompt and interesting replies. The reason I asked the question is because I recently visited the Met office in Darwin and was surprised to see they measure air pressure on the first floor of an airconditioned building rather than measure the actual atmosphere outside at ground level. They actually report QFE as the pressure at the level of the barometer and not at runway threshold level. This means, in Darwin at least, that QFE is out by about 0.5hPa. Probably not much to worry about if using whole numbers (but I'm not sure about that)? They reckon that the pressure readings are near enough so they're good enough. I don't know if they measure the pressure the same way at other offices; I would hope they take more care with other met readings though! Might be a good idea to remember this one when using pressure readings in Darwin? I wonder how accurate their QNH readings are? I'd hate to think dodgy pressure readings have had any thing to do with CFIT accidents; hope not.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, (been a while since I flew those routes), but I think some of the western Chinese airfields (Kunming?) were still using QFE only a year or two ago.