UTC Time (Universal Time Coordinated) is an international time zone. It's from that particular time zone all other time zones are calculated. UTC does not use DST (Daylight Saving Time). So Scandinavian normal time (from last Sunday in October to last Sunday in March) will be UTC+1 and Scandinavian DST (from last Sunday in March to last Sunday in October) will be UTC+2.

 

Many thinks that UTC and GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is the same. It is not. Though the time for UTC and GMT is the same during normal time in England, it is different during DST (from last Sunday in March to last Sunday in October). Then GMT is UTC+1 and thereby not the same as UTC.

 

Zulu Time on the other hand is exactly the same as UTC. Zulu time is today used among others by the military, airlines, pilots and shipping.

 

And to make it all a bit more confusing, there is a bug in FSX (I don't know if it also exist i FS9). GMT in FSX is the same as UTC (witch by now we know is not correct) . It is therefor absolutely vital that you set your startup location in FSX to be an airport in your local time zone (As standard FSX starts up with the airport Friday Harbor in the Washington state of USA wich is in the timezone UTC-8 and during DST UTC-7. So you have to change that location unless you of course live in that particular time zone.). Then when FSX has loaded to the main menu, you can change it to what ever you like.

 

To change the location you must do the following:

 

Click on 'CHANGE' under CURRENT LOCATION and choose an airport in your local time zone. I'm from Denmark so a natural choice for me was Kastrup (EKCH)

 

 

Click on 'Save'

 

 

In the box Flight title: write a name like default or what ever you like and remember to click on Make this the default flight

 

 

Go back to the main menu in FSX and click on 'Settings' to the left and on 'General' to the right

 

 

Click in the box Use System time for Free Flight

 

 

Click on 'OK'

 

Now FSX will start up every time with the airport you selected and your local time zone and UTC (in FSX GMT) will be correct.

 

If you want to read all this in danish you can do that at: http://wolfsfsx.blog...er-utc-tid.html

and http://wolfsfsx.blog...-tid-i-fsx.html

Something you got wrong here Peter.

 

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/

 

http://www.timeanddate.com/time/aboututc.html

 

London Time is the same as Greenwich Mean Time less than half of the year. During Summer Time (Daylight Saving Time), London Time is GMT+1, also known as British Summer Time (BST)

 

Soeren Nielsen

Zulu = GMT = UTC. They are all the same. GMT does NOT change with daylight savings time. GMT was merely replaced by UTC as the international standard.

 

Source: NASA.

 

Many thinks that UTC and GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is the same. It is not. Though the time for UTC and GMT is the same during normal time in England, it is different during DST (from last Sunday in March to last Sunday in October). Then GMT is UTC+1 and thereby not the same as UTC..

 

Your statement here is incorrect!! UTC and GMT are equivalent times. BST i.e. British Summer Time is GMT+1 and/or UTC+1

GMT never changes!

 

vololiberista

Thanks for clearing that up guys. I didn't know of BST.

 

So GMT = UTC = ZULU

Thanks for clearing that up guys. I didn't know of BST.

 

So GMT = UTC = ZULU

 

Basicaly yes

 

UTC

 

What is Co-ordinated Universal Time?

 

Replaced Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as the World standard for time in 1986. It is based on atomic measurements rather than the earth's rotation. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is still the standard time zone for the Prime Meridian (Zero Longitude).

 

What is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)?

 

Greenwich Mean Time or GMT is the time standard against which all other time zones in the world are referenced.

It is the same all year round and is not effected by Summer Time or Daylight saving Time.

GMT was originally set-up to aid naval navigation when the globe started to open up with the discovery of the "New World" (America) in the fifteenth Century.

It was not forced on to "land-lubbers" until the introduction of the railways (railroads) in the mid nineteenth century. In the 1840 's with the introduction of the railways (railroads) there was a need, in Britain, for a national time system to replace the local time adopted by major towns and cities. Greenwich was the national centre for time and had been since 1675. It was not adopted officially by Parliament until 2 August 1880.

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was adopted by the United States (USA) at noon on 18 November 1883 when the telegraph lines transmitted time signals to all major cities. Prior to that there were over 300 local times in the USA.

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was adopted universally on the 1 November 1884 when the International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC, USA met. From then the International Date Line was drawn up and 24 time zones created.

Today, GMT is used as the UK's civil time, or UTC. But to navigators, GMT has referred to "UT1", which directly corresponds to the rotation of the Earth, and is subject to that rotation's slight irregularities. It is the difference between UT1 and UTC that is kept below 0.9s by the application of leap seconds.

 

Zulu Time

 

What is "Zulu" time?

 

"Zulu" time is that which is more commonly know as "GMT" (Greenwich Mean Time). Our natural concept of time is linked to the rotation of the earth and we define the length of the day as the 24 hours it takes (on average) the earth to spin once on its axis.

As time pieces became more accurate and communication became global, there needed to be a point from which all other world times were based. Since Great Britain was the world's foremost maritime power when the concept of latitude and longitude came to be, the starting point for designating longitude was the "prime meridian" which is zero degrees and runs through the Royal Greenwich Observatory, in Greenwich, England.

When the concept of time zones was introduced, the "starting" point for calculating the different time zones was agreed to be the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

Unfortunately the Earth does not rotate at exactly a constant rate. Due to various scientific reasons and increased accuracy in measuring the earth's rotation, a new timescale, called Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), has been adopted and replaces the term GMT.

The Navy, as well as civil aviation, uses the letter "Z" (phonetically "Zulu") to refer to the time at the prime meridian.

NOAA satellites use Zulu Time or Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) as their time reference. The satellite images that appear on NOAA's Web sites are stamped in Zulu time.

The Department of the Navy serves as the United States official timekeeper, with the Master Clock facility at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C.

 

For our use, they are all the same.

 

Best

Soeren Nielsen

France tried to move the prime meridian to Paris, and the US Navy wanted Washington DC. As it turns out, our railroads were better at persuading the community of the need and they didn't care where so it ends up at Greenwich. There is a whole book out there on how standard time came into being. Interesting stuff (or maybe I'm a geek).