I was under the impression that the world flies at foot-based flight levels.
To change to all-metric entails a massive cost of changing altimeter
measurement and display equipment and training pilots. All of these are
based on safety. New commercial planes have soft displays so it would be
less costly to change displays on them, however, the need for education and
training still exists for pilots, many of whom are private small plane
people.
It's much like changing gasoline pumps for cars. A large percentage of them
were mechanical-based back during the 1970s when there was a big push to go
metric. However, virtually all pumps today have soft displays and the pumps
fuel-measuring devices are easily switched between metric and English units.
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pierre Abbat" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 10:17 AM
Subject: [USMA:38313] Re: Plane and train schedules was Brand New Phone
On Thursday 22 March 2007 05:21, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
> Has anyone thought what it would take to get all countries to
> switch to metric
> flight levels?
Are you referring to altitude?
Yes. Each country or region has a system in which planes flying in certain
directions keep certain altitudes: those flying at 10.0 km fly northeast,
those at 10.3 km fly southeast, those at 10.6 km fly southwest, and so on.
The assignment of directions to flight levels varies by country. See
"Flight
level" on Wikipedia.
phma
