Your Altimeter Is Lying

All instruments in your panel lie some of the time. Some of them lie all the time. Even if you have a glass panel that eliminates things like compass turning errors, and its connected to an air-data computer so it always know the true airspeed, your back-up systems likely are steam gauges, the old-fashioned, mechanical kind. Thats the bad news.

Key Takeaways:

• Altimeters measure atmospheric pressure, not true altitude, and are calibrated to an International Standard Atmosphere, leading to inherent errors when real-world pressure and temperature deviate from standard conditions.
• Deviations in barometric pressure from standard require pilots to make altimeter setting adjustments, and extreme conditions can cause significant discrepancies between indicated and true altitude, potentially affecting flight level availability.
• Extreme cold temperatures cause altimeters to indicate higher than the actual altitude (aircraft is lower than indicated), necessitating mandatory cold-temperature error corrections at designated airports to ensure safe obstacle clearance.

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