murphy-rebel Digest for 17 Aug 1999
Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:26 pm
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To: <murphy-rebel@dcsol.com> (Murphy Rebel Builders List)
From: Victor Craig <victor@airplan.com>
Subject: Re: murphy-rebel Digest for 17 Aug 1999
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Re: Digest 17th August - Units of Measure
Regarding Ian Donaldson's point (Digest 17th Aug. via Bob Patterson) about
having to get used to imperial measurement units in order to build his
Rebel, I do have to sympathise as he will also have to find AF spanner and
socket sizes and drill bits in fractions of an inch. Although the Murphy
aircraft are Canadian products, the use of imperial units is all to do with
where the biggest market for kiplane sales lies - not really whether the
country has gone metric or not. I was, however, amused by Bob Patterson's
comments about prefering the old measures, but rest assured, Bob, you are
not the dinosaur that you may have believed. Look up your AIP Canada,
Section GEN 1.5 and you will see that Canada OFFICIALLY uses imperial units
for aeronautics, even through the country is metric otherwise. Some special
units are also specified, and it is interesting to note that Canada
officially recognises nautical miles and knots for distances and speeds, and
feet, feet per minute etc. for elevations on aeronautical charts, altitudes
and vertical speeds. BUT, statute miles per hour (MPH) is not among those
units recognised in Canada for aviation use, despite a lot of ASI's reading
MPH and fitted and used in Canadian-registered light aircraft. Presumably
Airworthiness Inspectors don't look all that closely at these things.
FWIW there is an international standard on all this - ICAO Annex 5 - which
recognises SI units (metric) as the world standard, but allows certain
alternate non-metric units to be declared and adopted by individual states
where long standing practice dictates. Interestingly, some of the metric
"heavies" in Europe do actually specify some non-metric units for aviation
use in their AIP's, such as nautical miles, knots for airspeed, feet for
altitudes and for instrument approach minima. I would suspect that if Ian
Donaldson consults his AIP for Australia there might be some imperial
surprises there too. Certainly the New Zealand AIP (Planning Manual - GEN
5) specifies feet for elevations, heights and altitudes, nautical miles for
distances and knots for all speeds associated with aviation - including
winds, but is metric for everything else. Possibly, Australia may be
similar.
Does anyone remember some years ago that Air Canada 767 that loaded fuel in
the wrong units of measure and ended up gliding into an emergency landing in
Manitoba ??!!!!
None of this may help you, Ian, as you go through mental contortions
adapting to imperial measures, but good luck with your new kit in any case.
Victor Craig
Rebel #518
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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To: <murphy-rebel@dcsol.com> (Murphy Rebel Builders List)
From: Victor Craig <victor@airplan.com>
Subject: Re: murphy-rebel Digest for 17 Aug 1999
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Re: Digest 17th August - Units of Measure
Regarding Ian Donaldson's point (Digest 17th Aug. via Bob Patterson) about
having to get used to imperial measurement units in order to build his
Rebel, I do have to sympathise as he will also have to find AF spanner and
socket sizes and drill bits in fractions of an inch. Although the Murphy
aircraft are Canadian products, the use of imperial units is all to do with
where the biggest market for kiplane sales lies - not really whether the
country has gone metric or not. I was, however, amused by Bob Patterson's
comments about prefering the old measures, but rest assured, Bob, you are
not the dinosaur that you may have believed. Look up your AIP Canada,
Section GEN 1.5 and you will see that Canada OFFICIALLY uses imperial units
for aeronautics, even through the country is metric otherwise. Some special
units are also specified, and it is interesting to note that Canada
officially recognises nautical miles and knots for distances and speeds, and
feet, feet per minute etc. for elevations on aeronautical charts, altitudes
and vertical speeds. BUT, statute miles per hour (MPH) is not among those
units recognised in Canada for aviation use, despite a lot of ASI's reading
MPH and fitted and used in Canadian-registered light aircraft. Presumably
Airworthiness Inspectors don't look all that closely at these things.
FWIW there is an international standard on all this - ICAO Annex 5 - which
recognises SI units (metric) as the world standard, but allows certain
alternate non-metric units to be declared and adopted by individual states
where long standing practice dictates. Interestingly, some of the metric
"heavies" in Europe do actually specify some non-metric units for aviation
use in their AIP's, such as nautical miles, knots for airspeed, feet for
altitudes and for instrument approach minima. I would suspect that if Ian
Donaldson consults his AIP for Australia there might be some imperial
surprises there too. Certainly the New Zealand AIP (Planning Manual - GEN
5) specifies feet for elevations, heights and altitudes, nautical miles for
distances and knots for all speeds associated with aviation - including
winds, but is metric for everything else. Possibly, Australia may be
similar.
Does anyone remember some years ago that Air Canada 767 that loaded fuel in
the wrong units of measure and ended up gliding into an emergency landing in
Manitoba ??!!!!
None of this may help you, Ian, as you go through mental contortions
adapting to imperial measures, but good luck with your new kit in any case.
Victor Craig
Rebel #518
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia