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The greater the altitude, the lower the pressure. When a barometer is supplied with a nonlinear calibration so as to indicate altitude, the instrument is a type of altimeter called a pressure altimeter or barometric altimeter. A pressure altimeter is the altimeter found in most aircraft, and skydivers use wrist-mounted versions for similar ...
The altimeter, which is usually a barometer calibrated in units of distance instead of atmospheric pressure, can therefore be set in such a way as to indicate the height of the aircraft above ground. This is done by communicating with the control tower of the airport (to get the current surface pressure) and setting the altimeter so as to read ...
Indicated altitude is the reading on the altimeter when it is set to the local barometric pressure at mean sea level. In UK aviation radiotelephony usage, the vertical distance of a level, a point or an object considered as a point, measured from mean sea level; this is referred to over the radio as altitude.(see QNH) [2]
In ISA temperature conditions the altimeter will read the height above the airfield/runway in the vicinity of the airfield. SPS/STD - 'Standard Pressure Setting' or just 'Standard' refers to the altimeter being set to the standard pressure of 1013.25 hPa. It is the setting that causes an altimeter to read the aircraft's flight level (FL).
A barometric altimeter, used along with a topographic map, can help to verify one's location. It is more reliable, and often more accurate, than a GPS receiver for measuring altitude; the GPS signal may be unavailable, for example, when one is deep in a canyon, or it may give wildly inaccurate altitudes when all available satellites are near the horizon.
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Global Navigation Satellite System (such as GPS), where a receiver determines a location from pseudoranges to multiple satellites. A geoid is needed to convert the 3D position to sea-level elevation. Pressure altimeter measuring atmospheric pressure, which decreases as altitude increases. Since atmospheric pressure varies with the weather, too ...
A short time later the Kollsman company received an order from the U.S. Navy for 300 altimeters, their first commercial success. [1] [2] [5] Subsequent models were modified to allow the pilot to easily set a local altimeter setting, shown in the "Kollsman window". [2] [6] [17] By the mid-1930s Kollsman altimeters dominated the aircraft market. [18]