Yes, of course. But nice (for a gadget lover :-)) and comfortable.
Airborne_Again wrote:
I also don’t see the point with this. What would be the benefit of the TA being 18000 ft?
The current rules are actually quite complicated, but it doesn’t seem to bother too many pilots because they are not meticulously followed. Speaking of France, you currently have to use flight levels above 3000 ft AGL or above the defined transition altitude, if you are inside a TMA. So to apply this correctly, you need to be aware of your height above ground and you need to have studied the transition altitudes of the airports whose TMAs you’re flying in. This information is quite well hidden – for VFR pilots, the only place where it is published are the 1:1 000 000 charts of the SIA, not on the VAC charts.
As an example: If I want to fly from Nancy Essey (LFSN) to Basel (LFSB). Before take off, I have to set my altimeter to the local QNH. As soon as I exit the TMA or I climb above the transition altitude of 5000 ft inside the Nancy TMA, I have to change to 1013 hPa. Now as I approach the Vosges mountains, I have to keep track of terrain height, and as soon as it gets higher than 4000 ft, I have to switch back to some local QNH of a nearby airfield (no such thing as a regional QNH in France). As I approach the Basel TMA (TA 7000 ft), I have to get the transition level from the ATIS in order to decide whether I will be flying in the transition layer at this altitude, and may have to change my cruising level to avoid flying inside the transition layer. Then, as soon as I descend inside the Basel TMA, I have to switch to the local QNH again. Now as a bonus, the Nancy TMA often is inactive. I think that this changes back the TA to 3000 ft AGL, but I don’t even know for sure.
If the QNH is very high or very low, each change between flight levels and QNH results in a big change in actual altitude flown.
All this ambiguity and changing of transition altitudes can be removed if you used a higher transition altitude. It also takes the transition layer out of the altitudes that are often used by small GA.
Keeping the altimeter setting is no big deal in the US, even for a faster airplane. When IFR, the altimeter setting is provided at each check in. The majority of the time, the altimeter setting is the same as already entered. Otherwise it is a small adjustment. Complaining about the possibility of a few seconds of effort every 15 minutes is beyond my comprehension.
But we read that new QNH settings might occur rather more frequently in Europe. Imagine a flight from Danmark to Spain: that would involve separate settings for Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and an unspecified number in France.
What is currently the highest transition altitude in Europe? I suppose it’s probably not far off 18K around the alps?
tomjnx wrote:
If you want to harmonize, you can’t do it much lower because of terrain
There can’t be an instrument airport in Europe with a TA nearly as high as 18000’. LOWI has a TA of 11000’.
Rwy20 wrote:
The current rules are actually quite complicated
Yes, I agree, but that problem could be solved by regionally harmonising the TA. All of Europe wouldn’t need a TA of 18000’.
Peter wrote:
Normally, altitude capture needs an encoder of some sort. If this is an altimeter (e.g. KEA130A) then that will also feed the QNH to the AP. If it is a dumb encoder then you won’t have that. So I would look at the type of altimeter. Altitude hold is normally done using a barometric sensor which is stable but not accurate, so the encoder is still monitored as a slow background process.
The KAP140 does have altitude preselect but I still think that altitude hold is independent of both the encoder and QNH. But I’ll check as soon as I get the opportunity.
Airborne_Again wrote:
There can’t be an instrument airport in Europe with a TA nearly as high as 18000’. LOWI has a TA of 11000’.
LSZS supposedly has a TA of 13000’, and LSGS of 16000’. That’s “nearly 18000’”, in my book.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Yes, I agree, but that problem could be solved by regionally harmonising the TA. All of Europe wouldn’t need a TA of 18000’.
Haha…. so what’s the point of “regionally harmonising”? It won’t be any simpler of what we have now. Change for changes sake?
tomjnx wrote:
LSZS supposedly has a TA of 13000’, and LSGS of 16000’. That’s “nearly 18000’”, in my book.
LSZS doesn’t have a TA (VFR airport), but LSGS does have 17000’. Fair enough, but I still don’t think the benefits of a single European TA outweighs the drawbacks.
