Advantages to Imperial units

[dberry]

@Hoag Do Commercial pilots from other (metric) countries conform to those units at all times? Or do they have to adjust to Kts, etc. when they enter U.S. airspace? I'd guess there are international agreements standardizing these things... which gives a new meaning to "American Imperialism".

 

[Hoag]

@Hoag Do Commercial pilots from other (metric) countries conform to those units at all times? Or do they have to adjust to Kts, etc. when they enter U.S. airspace? I'd guess there are international agreements standardizing these things... which gives a new meaning to "American Imperialism".

To the best of my knowledge, those are all standard around the globe. (My personal experience is limited to Canada and the US with a little cross training within Europe.) I believe that they are standards as defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Flight safety needs everyone in the air to be operating on the same standard. As an aside, English is the "International language of aviation" so pilots and controllers speak English no matter where they are from or where they currently are (with the exception of a few small regional airports that deal only with local flights. Those sometimes use the local language.)

FWIW, Canada is a nation that uses the metric system, but within aviation, we use those units (Flight Level, kts etc). However, if something happens, it will be reported in the news using metric.

 

[Dan]

To the best of my knowledge, those are all standard around the globe. (My personal experience is limited to Canada and the US with a little cross training within Europe.) I believe that they are standards as defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Flight safety needs everyone in the air to be operating on the same standard. As an aside, English is the "International language of aviation" so pilots and controllers speak English no matter where they are from or where they currently are (with the exception of a few small regional airports that deal only with local flights. Those sometimes use the local language.)

FWIW, Canada is a nation that uses the metric system, but within aviation, we use those units (Flight Level, kts etc). However, if something happens, it will be reported in the news using metric.

Like everything else, if you are the 1st inline, everyone else follows & your method becomes the standard. US led the phone system to spread to the world, hence its country code is +1. British lead the international timing system, hence, London is GMT+0. US was the first to introduce Internet to the world, so we don't need internet country code & the rest of the world would.

 

[RainPilot]

Knots everywhere except for some older light aircraft that were in mph. I believe some Soviet aircraft used km/h as well.

Feet altitude everywhere except old Soviet Bloc which use meters.

Inches of mercury only in US and places where there are US military aircraft e.g. F16 here and so on.

The ATC worldwide will give pressure in inches and in hectopascals which is the worldwide standard. In US they will only give inches.

As far as English goes in Europe, only required if flying into or out of an international airport or in Class A controlled airspace. Good luck hearing any English anywhere if you are low level. Commercial pilots are required to do an English test but the bar is not super high.

 

[RainPilot]

Like everything else, if you are the 1st inline, everyone else follows & your method becomes the standard. US led the phone system to spread to the world, hence its country code is +1. British lead the international timing system, hence, London is GMT+0. US was the first to introduce Internet to the world, so we don't need internet country code & the rest of the world would.

This. Also the reason fixed wing aircraft have the pilot on the left and helicopters on the right.

 

[JohnnyC]

And then you get some jerkface that decides he's gonna make a metric skiftnyckel.....

Metric adjustable wrench

 

[charlier]

Time is more complicated, as humans originally tied time to natural phenomena such as the earth's rotation on its axis (length of a day) and revolution around the sun (year). None of these are exactly constant, nor does the number of days fit evenly into a year. 360 days / year was good enough once upon a time, which led to the definition of 360 degrees in a circle (AFAIK). 360 is divided evenly by 24, hence 24 hours in a day.
BTW, according to NIST the SI definition of time is as follows:
The second is the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.

In my work, we use GPS time. Seriously... GPS uses atomic clocks in the GPS ground receivers and the GPS satellites (both prone to error). GPS time is zeroed at 0h 6-Jan-1980 and since it is not perturbed by leap seconds GPS is now ahead of UTC by 18 seconds. Luckily, computer systems take care of GPS time conversation to GMT.

 

[Miyaru]

Ooooooooooh........ "imperial"

I always told my students that we have the metric system, and that there are still three countries using the impaired system, where they measure with there feet, which is why you sometimes see depth in ft.
I only ever met 1 guy who really had feet of 30,48cm long and no, we didn't have fins that size. He didn't need fins anyway.
Everyone else has smaller feet. So why use feet? Because it sounds soooo much cooler to say you've been diving at 100 feet deep! And if you have small feet, you probably only crossed the Open Water course limits.

Oh well. Impaired, imperial. At least I got the first three characters right

 

[Hatul]

I'd say that's way too late to be ascending, but that's just me. How much gas do you need to get you and your buddy to the surface from 30m (100 ft)? Do the maths and then see if your 1000psi is enough.

A rough rule of thumb for Rock Bottom is ascend at Depth in feet *10 + 500 psi
So at 90 ft the must ascend pressure is 900+500 psi=1400 psi.
You should have enough air to make a safe ascent for two divers in a non deco dive (80 cu ft tank or bigger)