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I am a non-american, and understand the concept of 15000 feet. :) The only countries not to use feet as a measure of altitude for aviation purposes are China,
by PaulRobinson 9y ago
I am a non-american, and understand the concept of 15000 feet. :)
The only countries not to use feet as a measure of altitude for aviation purposes are China, DPRK and Russia. They use metres.
- baby 9y agoAh I didn't know that, so pilots in France use feet as a measure for aviation altitude? PS: wow, interesting https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_en_aviation https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_en_aviation
- realusername 9y agoThey only use it internally, when communicating to passengers, they still use metres (because nobody has any idea what a foot looks like in France).
- meredydd 9y agoNot actually true; French pilots and ATC use feet too (whichever language you're speaking). French influence on aviation has been strong since the beginning (hence all the French words - aileron, fuselage, décalage, etc), but the unit of height/altitude is one where the Americans set the standard. (Source: I fly an American-designed, French-built aeroplane to/through France semi-regularly.)
- clamprecht 9y agoIt's true about French influence. Even the weather observation reports used worldwide, METARS, use abbreviations like "BR" for fog, because the French word for fog is "brouillard".
- lloeki 9y agoInterestingly enough, as a French and although I flew very little as a pilot, I can't seem to internally make sense of the metric system unit for altitude and as a passenger on those planes I always convert to feet.
- marcosdumay 9y agoThe ~30 meters vertical separation between planes lead to a nice round system for measuring everything in feet, or a cumbersome one in meters. Aviation also measure speed in knots, and distances in nautical miles. But those don't have good reasons to be kept.
- knz 9y ago> Aviation also measure speed in knots, and distances in nautical miles. But those don't have good reasons to be kept. 1 knot is equal to 1 nautical mile/hour, which is traditionally 1 minute of latitude. I assume they have been kept for tradition and also in the event of an emergency requiring manual navigation?