Question for you all:I us a coporate flight planner and Metric is the measurement of choice for me because I do alot of flying in Europe and overseas. Do our RW pilots find that metric is more widely used as opposed to US mesurements? If so, why does the US still use Lbs when refering to fuel mesurements instead of kilos?Just wondering

I don't think 'better' is the right word. It is all about tradition and what you got used to. Nautical mile, for example, is a natural unit which is still widely used in marine/aviation. Hardly anybody uses Km while flying or sailing - even in Europe.As to why lbs are still used in the US - have no clue. Michael J.[link:jdtllc.com]http://jdtllc.com/images/RCsupporter.jpg

Its simply pilot preference with PIC.In Canada most of us use metric. Except WJ.

Bill,You know I am not a RW pilot but I think I can answer part of this. The US still uses pounds for the same reason gasoline is sold by the gallon, and distance measured by the inch/foot/yard/mile. So many of us grew up, like our parents and grandparents, with this system and have clung to it for so long that tradition has resisted the attempts to convert to metric. Even though just about everyone would agree that metric makes more sence and is a hell of a lot easer to work with.It's like this, I am 6 feet tall and weigh 177 pounds. I can relate to that because of living with that standard all of my life. If you tell me that you are 183 centimeters and weigh 80 kilos I am thinking you must be tall and very skinny. I have to translate that to pounds in order to relate to it. (Ahh, same as me) The same thing goes for liters. I guess it is a lot like feeling comfortable with a foregn language. Until you can think of an object or value as it is, without having to first translate it, you can never get comfortable with it's use. And thus the US still clings to pounds.

BTW, when it comes to science (say physics), metric units are far superior and they are being used in US universities & reasearch institutions. Even NASA uses metric.Michael J.[link:jdtllc.com]http://jdtllc.com/images/RCsupporter.jpg

I use nautical miles for distance, having been fed on that through flight. Although kilometers is ok too. I like my height in feet and my weight in pounds, but I live in Canada so here that is considered unusual.

Hello,As most of you may know it, I am a RW corporate airline captain, and fly mostly in europe, and north africa.We definetly uses the Nautical miles for distance, Knots for speed, for weights, IE pounds or Kilos, it depends, first the bird you are flying, second the compagnie policy. On the Airbus, we use kilos, and the fuel is not in litter, but directly in tons and kilos. If i am refueling, I won't ask for 2350 litres, but directly for, as an example 7.5 tons. The fuel feeder of the bus (refueling computer), will do its job .On other bird, like all the king Air, and the PC12, I still use the pounds, as for the weights, and for the fuel. The reason is simple, I grew up with the bird using those values. So now my mind for this bird is built up using pounds. 2600 pounds of fuel, 6000 pounds the zero fuel weight, 9920 pounds the max take of weight. The other reason is because the constructor flight manual, is already set up this way. Of course I know the values in kilos, but it is more speaking to me in pounds.Other than that, it is a company policy, or a country rule, like the CEU using meter for altitude and china if I remember correctly.Cpt Cyrille de Lattre