Couldn't agree more (see post #2). It would be nice to have approach plates with just one setting on.

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The other thing to watch out for is taking off from a high airfield underneath airspace with QFE set. Crosland Moor at Huddersfield is a good one for that, there's class A at 3,500 and class D at 3,000. Field is at 800 odd feet, easy to forget on the climb out, seen it happen.
The answer to this problem is to discontinue use of QFE, as previously discussed in this thread.

Which is why I would prefer, in the case of QNE to not bother with the added calculation of QFE. That way a single QNH derived alt reading would do for anywhere & the pilot can add elevation as required.

This is yet another thread that convinces me the British make everything in aviation unnecessarily complicated.

We get by perfectly well with just QNH (aerodrome QNH or area QNH) and 1013, and most light aircraft never have to bother with the latter.

No... QFE is good!...I use it always, I like it. Doing mental arithmatic in the air whilst landing an aircraft is not for me!

I use QFE when flying near my base airstrip - that way I don't suffer a CFIT if the weather clags up. As a UK pilot I have an Airspace Aware unit that gives me a (gps derived) QNH so I have belt and braces! Not that QNH is of any use whatsoever as I NEVER go near controlled airspace....
Andy

How would having QFE set stop you from having a CFIT? Surely QNH does a better job?

The QFE/QNH debate is as old as aviation itself!

If you've only ever operated QFE you think QNH operation is like going to the moon.

Having operated both over 40 years of flying I know which I prefer and what I think is safer and that's QNH every time.

It is generally flatland southerners who want to get rid of QFE because of the minimal difference between QNH and QFE from where they fly from/to. If they came north occasionally where airfields/airstrips are at higher altitude than sea level the novelty of doing mental arithmatic when coming in to land would soon wear thin I think.

Good grief - how do they manage in other countries where there are far more higher terrain airfields than in the UK? Ever tried to set QFE at Nairobi?

While I try not to tell people whch way to do something, because it is their own preference, I simply do not understand a couple of the points made about QFE in the last few posts.

How does QFE stop you having a CFIT?

What is the mental arithmetic required during landing if using a QNH even if into higher elevation fields? I spent some time flying light aircraft around Portugal which I only mention because they have field elevations at and around 2000' in places which is more than you get in the UK, and I never remember doing any mental calcs.

Perhaps a new trend could be set by not including QFE in RT transmissions for those that preferred not to use it. If challenged for non-read back, state - politely - 'using QNH and field elevation'. If passed a RPS, your response could be 'using local QNH'. (Plus optional 'thank you').

Having said and read all, unless you are making an approach in clag or somewhere where the circuit is busy and need to stick to a circuit height why do you need to look at the altimeter when making a landing? Surely it's all visual clues with the odd glance at the ASI. It doesn't matter what the field elevation is, just use your eyeballs.

Tin hat donned...:)

"If they came north occasionally" I love it! I can't be bothered to set QFE much of the time, it's easier to just add the known elevation to the usually round thousands of circuit heights, hardly mental arithmetic.

Well if QFE is good enough for the RAF it is sure good enough for me..

Incidently I was once failed on an IMC test for not setting QFE!

Seriously though I admit it was the way I was taught way back in the early eighties to always use. I now cannot see me using anything else. I don't give a stuff what ATC tell me QNH or QFE, regardless I will always use QFE. To me it is just logical...set pressure to give me the altimeter reading zero when I touch down on the threshhold, just tell me what could be simpler!

altimeter setting
 

If I may interject I would like to profer my opinion? As an RAF pilot with 14 years FJ experience I can see both sides of the argument. In the UK I would much rather use QFE because it is easier in my mind. I am currently based in Canada and in the last year have flown approaches into Boulder CO, Great Falls MT, Casper WY, Salt-lake City UT (I'll stop there or it just looks like bragging) and QFE would make absolutely no sense whatsoever (as discussed here it would be far outside the range of pretty much every altimeter on the market).
In my experience UK civvy airports will give QNH unless you ask for QFE. This arrangement works just fine for me and appears to be the best of both worlds.
I am pretty happy with either. I think the maths that Dave Wilson may be talking about is the need to add circuit height or DH to runway elevation.
BV

Maths? Didn't realise I'd mentioned it. Because I fly from a mil field it's QFE on the instrument approaches, if I do an approach at Donny up the road it's QNH. I just think that even if they don't bin QFE altogether they could at least make approach plates standard and use QNH on all of them. I know that both QFE and QNH are on the same plate but why confuse the issue when there's no need?

As I said earlier once you're in the circuit you don't need the altimeter anymore, or shouldn't do at any rate.

Well just flipping through my Pooleys, I see that most UK airfields are below 200ft asl. With only a few over 400ft asl. So it is not too much strain to wind on 10 hPa on the dial from QFE to QNH.


btw. I have a spare ex Air Ministry Altimeter that goes down to 800 mB (~6000ft) on the subscale.

Three interesting posts from Shoestring Flyer.

Post 45: QFE may be good for you when landing and in the vicinity of the aerodrome (circuit), however once you move away from those environs do bear in mind that the base of controlled airspace, where defined as an altitude, is based on the relevant QNH. Head away from your airfield on QFE and (in pretty much all of the UK) you will already be x feet above sea level. This may cause you difficulty, because you are now flying at a height, which may put you close to or even above the base of CAS (altitude) of which you may not be conscious, because you are flying on QFE. Or do you do the relevant mental arithmetic whilst flying to prevent an inadvertent infringement.

Post 49: At peril of engaging in a north-south, hills-flatlands and QFE-QNH debate, to which others have alluded, I find it remarkable that pretty well all commercial operators, including single pilot operators, use QNH and manage the mental arithmetic involved. I would suggest that adding the elevation of your landing strip to the relevant QNH and then flying it accurately should be well within the competence of any qualified pilot; it is, after all, simple mental arithmetic.

Post 55: Regarding the RAF; sadly, it is a somewhat minor player in aviation these days and it's historic adherence to QFE is not reflected by the major players - the airlines, whose use of QNH is pretty much total. To that end all professional flight training operators will use QNH as part of the process of preparing their students for commercial operations.

It is also worth considering that all UK civil ATC units will use QNH as the basis for providing the vertical separation of aircraft under their control, and are unlikely to make adjustments for the personal preferences of pilots who don't give a stuff what ATC say. Even if you request and are given a QFE, in addition to the airfield QNH, you will be expected to state your vertical position by reference to the QNH, as an altitude.

Fly safely, and do bear in mind that the charts mark elevation related to sea level.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was only one altimeter setting... You could call it 'altimeter setting' :) All the terrain on the chart including the airport elevation would match the altimeter. All airspace delineations would match the altimeter at all times. Every plane of interest would be on the same setting, and would be individually responsible for keeping their altimeter accurate using widespread sources of airborne aeronautical data. Eventually you'd have a difficult time finding a pilot who would know what Q-this and Q-that meant, because it would be archaic nonsense.

It doesn't hurt to dream ;)

Do people actually fly cross country on QFE? I was under the impression it was only used in the vicinity/circuit? It is all the twiddling that is the problem, isn't it?

If you don't like QFE, don't use it. How hard is that?

It's just another option, there's no requirement to use it VFR (don't know about IFR rules.) I've never understood why people bother to moan about QFE.

Prop swinger - I was describing the existing situation in the US, where most GA worldwide occurs and where the mention of Q-anything would gather only a blank stare, or perhaps a gentle smile of recognition in recalling Q-codes as a long obsolete and slightly bizarre concept from the history books, right next to Morse code as primary communication. QNH is called by that name today (in some places) only as a necessity created by those, mainly in the UK, who refuse to let go of the Edwardian past, including its arcane and today pointless navigation practices.

Given widely available altimeter data, it is normal worldwide practice for all low altitude GA aircraft to use a common type of altimeter setting that tells each of them how high they are above sea level. Accordingly, most pilots worldwide don't have any need to understand Q-codes; most of the world wouldn't know what QFE means and for God's sake of course I'll never use it!! :ugh: :rolleyes:

I think that you will find, Silvaire, that despite your parochial outlook to the contrary, both QNH and QFE are terms both of description and in RTF phraseology used by ICAO, i.e. recognised world-wide.

2 s

Apparently the Dave Wilson of Soylent Green fame. :O

If anyone has a parochial attitude about aviation its ICAO.

Explain, please, in this context.

2 s

I live and fly in the mountains where homebase elevation is 5400'. QNH for me, please, and yes, I have tried QFE when out of the country. I don't like it.

American Airlines used QFE for years with another altimeter set to QNH below FL180 or the Transition Level elsewhere. Talk about confusing mental arithmetic...but if its your cuppa tea...

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If anyone has a parochial attitude about aviation its ICAO.
Explain, please, in this context.

2 s

Sorry, if I have to explain that you wouldn't understand.

Recall going into Crete one day in the 1980s about number 5 or so in the sequence to join right base visual for the westerly runway. Greek controller working like a one armed paper hanger with departures as well (same track).

In the middle of the RT fracas Danair ahead of us calls up requesting the QFE - a rather exasperated controller replied "Danair XXX the QFE is five millibars less than the QNH".

Silvaire1 - love the irony and am with you all the way.

In the days when we operated QFE you could almost take a £5 bet on seeing an altitude bust in the event of a missed approach in the simulator. As soon as we changed to QNH it became a rarity.

It's certainly not true to say that QFE is used or even understood worldwide.

I'd be interested to know which countries, other than Britain, use it at all.

Having just returned from a fabulous Christmas holiday flying in Colorado and Florida, I concur that any expression starting with a "Q" is unlikely to be met with a full and complete understanding in the continental US. The words that get the correct answer are "altimeter setting".

The highest field I flew into was Buena Vista at elv. 7,950', (sadly I missed Leadville 43 miles further up the valley where the pattern is flown at 10,700') and the lowest was Everglades at about 6'.

Reading the Denver sectional and using QFE are two things not to be done together and I made copious kneeboard notes before I set off of the airfield elevs and pattern altitudes I was going to encounter. The changes in altimeter setting over relatively short distances surprised me.

The same principle of using QNH easily translates into my normal flying in SE England with Redhill at 222 ft.

One of the reasons the mountains make their own weather, and also destroying the practice of always flying a known pattern altitude and a set power abeam the threshold for the descent to touchdown. Remote mountain airports don't always broadcast field altimeter settings. Just a few of the variables that make mountain flying so interesting and enjoyable.

Try the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness area in Idaho next time. An example airport: Wilson Bar (C48) requires a two mile flight upstream in a narrow canyon to reverse course downstream for a low and slow, last minute dogleg turn to a one way final with no go around at no more than 100' above the river. Field elevation 2275', runway length 1500', gravel/grass/snakes. :ok: