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.

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Apparently the Dave Wilson of Soylent Green fame. :O

If anyone has a parochial attitude about aviation its ICAO.

Explain, please, in this context.

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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...

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

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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: