It is that time of year again and time to re-do a piece on the altimeter error resulting from extreme cold. References are skimpy. This amounts to an area of atmospheric physics where few are willing to venture. There are liability issues. If your PDA style E6-B has cold weather altimeter corrections above 1,000 ft. please give me make and model. There may be a latitude error as well but insignificant by comparison.
Didnt know it was a problem? You are not alone. Extreme cold can distort altimeter readings thousands of feet at altitude. "The mountains grow taller in Winter in the far North." Compare GPS altitude with the altimeter. Fly the altimeter, everyone else is, but request higher, and add the correction to the glide slope, and approach altitudes.
More to come. I am going to rewrite my Winter flying chapter. I'm no expert but there are serious problems in extreme cold that are not well defined much less mitigated. Any C-130 pilots out there who flew Antarctica? The base at the Pole is some 9,000 ft, I think; it would surely distort the altimeter to the maximum.
Didnt know it was a problem? You are not alone. Extreme cold can distort altimeter readings thousands of feet at altitude. "The mountains grow taller in Winter in the far North." Compare GPS altitude with the altimeter. Fly the altimeter, everyone else is, but request higher, and add the correction to the glide slope, and approach altitudes.
More to come. I am going to rewrite my Winter flying chapter. I'm no expert but there are serious problems in extreme cold that are not well defined much less mitigated. Any C-130 pilots out there who flew Antarctica? The base at the Pole is some 9,000 ft, I think; it would surely distort the altimeter to the maximum.
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