There appears to be some confusion with the interface…
Wind speed should be in knots, not km/h.
When using hybrid, this has still not been addressed.
There does not appear to be a way to have knots for wind, nm for distance,centrigrade for temp, feet for altitude and pressure in hpa which I believe is pretty standard for aviation?
For some reason there have been discussions and bugs logged for this but closed and not resolved.
I am a qualified pilot and simmer for about 30 years, this seems to me to be a very simple oversight.
Of course I know that they are the same, which is precisely why I question the change of title. Absolute nonsense. Bar, AFAIK, is a word derived from ‘barometric’ so at least has a hint of science about it, whereas Pascal is derived from what - some medieval, rather obscure, French mathematician.
Back in the mists of time when I learnt my trade (aircraft engineer), pressure, including atmospheric, was measured in pounds per square inch. In the 1970’s I think, we (the UK) went ‘global’ and that was replaced by bars and millibars - which was never ‘British’ at all, it was continental European, if not global. The Tornado, created with a consortium of UK, German and Italian companies, was the catalyst for that I believe and we had to convert our 4,000psi hydraulic system to 270bar.
Blaise Pascal obscure??? LMFAO
Well… To someone who doesn’t know “who the hack decided to change millibars to hectopascals and why” he really may appear obscure.. But medieval???LOL!!!
The Brits have a good saying: “least said, soonest mended.” Stick to it.
In aviation we use hPa almost everywhere in the world. in.Hg is North America and maybe a handful others with US influence/history and mbar is british, for whatever reason. mbar and hPa share the same value.
I’ve flown all over north and Central America and oceanic as far as Hawaii, so I’ve never been anywhere that doesn’t use in/hg. But I will say that the other display option on a 737 for altimeter setting is “hPa”; it’s not some flavor of millibar. (Of course they’re the same value, I’m just talking about terminology. Given that 737 EFIS control panels have contained this label since the -400, I guess the term has been in common use in aviation for quite a while…)
But what the sim gives you is not in km/hr for the wind, even it it says that. Go check it out.
Hybrid units have needed serious attention since tech alpha. They still haven’t given us the ability to select different units per measurement type, and things like the ATIS are still given in "Hg for QNH for example, regardless of the setting.
The US does EVERYTHING different to the rest of the world.
Most countries use hPa for their barometer setting. (US uses "Hg)
Most countries use knots for wind speed.
Most countries use nautical miles for larger distances.
Most countries use metres for visibilities and runway lengths. (US uses statute miles and feet respectively)
Most countries use kilograms for weights (The US uses pounds)
Most countries use litres for volume (The US uses gallons, quarts, etc)
Most countries use PANS-OPS rules (The US uses TERPS). This affects everything, including circling radii, terminal and airport speed limits.
China and Russia use metres for altitude, including flight levels.
They also use hPa for their barometer settings.
Many airfields use QFE (altimeter reads 0m altitude on the ground, instead of above sea level - normally military or mixed military/civilian use airports)
Wind speeds here are measured in metres/second. A close conversion is double the m/s for knots.
5m/s = 10kts for example.
And then there’s transition altitudes/levels. This is different all around the world, and in some places, can be airport dependent too.
TL;DR:
If we want this sim to be realistic for users all over the world, it’s time to add these selectable unit types.
mbar = HPa. Pascal is the international base unit for pressure. A force of one Newton apllied to an area of one square metre equals one Pascal. That’s basically nothing, so Hektopascal (100 Pascal) is used for air pressure and Kilo- or Megapascal for industrial use.
