In article
-septembe
r.org, (Recliner) wrote:

The Real Doctor wrote:
On 15/01/16 09:05, Recliner wrote:
I think we all know what an Inspector Sands call means, though I never
knew where his name came from. This article told me, and some of the
other coded PA messages on stations, ships and planes.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...ency-codes-you
re-not-supposed-to-know-about.html

In true Telegraph style, some of that is trivial:

"Hot bit - The heated part of an in-flight meal."

and some is just plain wrong:

"Flight level - "A fancy way of telling you how many thousands of
feet you are above sea level. Just add a couple of zeroes. Flight
level three-three zero is 33,000 feet.""

Is that wrong? [Yes, I know it's the barometric altitude, but that's not
something that's normally mentioned.]

Count the numbers of zeros.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 06:35:42 -0600,
wrote:

In article
-septembe
r.org, (Recliner) wrote:

The Real Doctor wrote:
On 15/01/16 09:05, Recliner wrote:
I think we all know what an Inspector Sands call means, though I never
knew where his name came from. This article told me, and some of the
other coded PA messages on stations, ships and planes.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...ency-codes-you
re-not-supposed-to-know-about.html

In true Telegraph style, some of that is trivial:

"Hot bit - The heated part of an in-flight meal."

and some is just plain wrong:

"Flight level - "A fancy way of telling you how many thousands of
feet you are above sea level. Just add a couple of zeroes. Flight
level three-three zero is 33,000 feet.""

Is that wrong? [Yes, I know it's the barometric altitude, but that's not
something that's normally mentioned.]

Count the numbers of zeros.

So isn't FL330 33,000 feet as it says?

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 06:35:42 -0600,
wrote:

In article

-septemb
er.org, (Recliner) wrote:

The Real Doctor wrote:
On 15/01/16 09:05, Recliner wrote:
I think we all know what an Inspector Sands call means, though I
never knew where his name came from. This article told me, and some
of the other coded PA messages on stations, ships and planes.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...gency-codes-yo
ure-not-supposed-to-know-about.html

In true Telegraph style, some of that is trivial:

"Hot bit - The heated part of an in-flight meal."

and some is just plain wrong:

"Flight level - "A fancy way of telling you how many thousands of
feet you are above sea level. Just add a couple of zeroes. Flight
level three-three zero is 33,000 feet.""

Is that wrong? [Yes, I know it's the barometric altitude, but that's
not something that's normally mentioned.]

Count the numbers of zeros.

So isn't FL330 33,000 feet as it says?

And the number of zeros in a thousand?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 07:10:52 -0600,
wrote:

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 06:35:42 -0600,
wrote:

In article

-septemb
er.org, (Recliner) wrote:

The Real Doctor wrote:
On 15/01/16 09:05, Recliner wrote:
I think we all know what an Inspector Sands call means, though I
never knew where his name came from. This article told me, and some
of the other coded PA messages on stations, ships and planes.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...gency-codes-yo
ure-not-supposed-to-know-about.html

In true Telegraph style, some of that is trivial:

"Hot bit - The heated part of an in-flight meal."

and some is just plain wrong:

"Flight level - "A fancy way of telling you how many thousands of
feet you are above sea level. Just add a couple of zeroes. Flight
level three-three zero is 33,000 feet.""

Is that wrong? [Yes, I know it's the barometric altitude, but that's
not something that's normally mentioned.]

Count the numbers of zeros.

So isn't FL330 33,000 feet as it says?

And the number of zeros in a thousand?

I'm sorry, but I just don't get what you're saying. Are you claiming
that FL330 is *NOT* 33,000 feet, as they say? Adding a couple of
zeros is a quick, simple way of getting the height in units that
people understand, and no-one reading that article would think it
means 33 million feet.

Three, and 'three, three, zero', plus the two extra zeros is 33,000 surely?

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 05:41:07 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

Three, and 'three, three, zero', plus the two extra zeros is 33,000 surely?

It is, as just about any normal person would understand. But Colin is
claiming that it's wrong in his eyes as it doesn't mean 33,000
thousand feet.

wrote on Fri, 15 Jan 2016 at 07:10:52:
In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 06:35:42 -0600,
wrote:

In article

-septemb
er.org, (Recliner) wrote:

The Real Doctor wrote:
[snip]

"Flight level - "A fancy way of telling you how many thousands of
feet you are above sea level. Just add a couple of zeroes. Flight
level three-three zero is 33,000 feet.""

Is that wrong? [Yes, I know it's the barometric altitude, but that's
not something that's normally mentioned.]

Count the numbers of zeros.

So isn't FL330 33,000 feet as it says?

And the number of zeros in a thousand?

I don't think "tellling you how many" has to be read as expressing the
same specificity as, say "states how many". Would anyone object if it
had said "A fancy way of telling you how many feet you are above sea
level"? Or even "miles"? OTOH, I would object to "telling you how
many tens of feet you are above ..." -- too specific an implication
that it was providing a definition of FL -- or if the actual example
hadn't been given to make the usage clear and to demonstrate that the
writer wasn't confused.

It's also the case that it's only used in a context where the distance
referred to _will_ be in the range of thousands, and that "thousands" is
the conventional unit used in conversation to express flying height.
--
Iain Archer

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 05:41:07 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

Three, and 'three, three, zero', plus the two extra zeros is 33,000
surely?

It is, as just about any normal person would understand. But Colin is
claiming that it's wrong in his eyes as it doesn't mean 33,000
thousand feet.

Two zeros added is hundreds, not thousands!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 09:30:01 -0600,
wrote:

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 05:41:07 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

Three, and 'three, three, zero', plus the two extra zeros is 33,000
surely?

It is, as just about any normal person would understand. But Colin is
claiming that it's wrong in his eyes as it doesn't mean 33,000
thousand feet.

Two zeros added is hundreds, not thousands!

Are you really saying you were confused by the original article???
Come on!

Two zeros added to the flight level gives the approximate height in
feet, usually rounded to the nearest thousand, which is all the layman
is interested in. The example made it perfectly clear to even the
dimmest reader what was meant.

It's a light-hearted article in a newspaper travel supplement, not a
technical dictionary, product specification or academic dissertation.
I thought it was readable, easily understood, and in no way
misleading.