So I'm flying the ICON at night to get the Rabbit Island cache.

I fiddle with the nob attached to the Altitude guage, which also has a small insert of numbers that's set at 29.92 .

As I play with the nob, the altitude reading changes and the 29.92 changes to other small amounts. What did i do, and what does IT do?

Is 29.92 barometric pressure, 'cause I don't know what I'm talking about.

I landed on water and set the Altitude Guage back to zero, but is sea level zero?

And why would the altitude reading change.

I even swirtched ICONs and altitude stayed the same. (I was hoping it would reset.)

29.92 is the "average" (mean, really) atmospheric pressure at sea level, used as "standard air pressure."

 

In the real world, as the weather changes the pressure changes, altering the altitude shown on your altimeter. Before taking off, you need to adjust your altimeter in one of two ways:

 

1) By dialing in the current pressure from local weather information, or...

 

2) As you did, by adjusting the shown altitude to your known, correct altitude. If you are not at sea level, you use the altitude for your location. It can be taken from the airfield elevation data on charts (or the in-game Map), for example. It's often conveniently painted in large numbers on hangars or other buildings on the flight line, too.

 

If you did not adjust the altimeter, and today's pressure was lower than yesterday's, the instrument would say you are higher than you really are, which could let bad things happen, especially in poor visibility.

 

You also have to adjust the altimeter while flying, as the pressure isn't constant over the whole world and you need to match what's current for your local area. Otherwise, your altimeter would not be giving you correct information.

 

You don't need to worry about any of this in Flight, as it doesn't model atmospheric pressure variations. Just keep it on 29.92.

Thanks.

That's very clear.

Since I've been learning about VOR, HSI, and all that, I've been aggressively fiddling with dials.

('Don't press that red button'!)

What red but-aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

That would be the "ejection" button on the stick - handy for getting rid of the little pisser at 5000 ft. :LMAO:

 

Best regards.

Luis

That would be the "ejection" button on the stick - handy for getting rid of the little pisser at 5000 ft. :LMAO:

 

Best regards.

Luis

 

I'd love to use that on some of my copilots. :Monkey:

 

Then again, maybe all of them... :diablo:

Pretty much every P-3 I've been in had the FE mic button on the center control pedestal re-labled as either "Copilot Eject" or "Nav Eject".