Re Metric Military;

I'm not sure how declaring the military "metric" simplifies things much:

On the ground, things come in anything you can think of, and some things
you never heard of, depending on where you are doing business and who
you buy it from (what does it say on the label?) 20mm, 30mm, .50 cal and
40mm are all good, though the 40mm launcher on the M-203 hurts your
shoulder after awhile, depending on the round you use; and a good
helping of 8-inch or 2000 pounders can really turn a bad situation around.

If you get a call for an airstrike, it could come in km or sm, either
way you convert it into nm to fly there, then back into feet (decimal,
not inches), lat-long and degrees (also in decimals) to put a weapon
solution on it, though for CAS you might need to keep the metric
equivalents handy for talking to the ground guys, depending on who they
are. If your customer is an artillery guy, you'll get milliradians with
your meters. Altitude is in feet most places not ICAO, which is moot
when you hit the flight levels--give me a number, I can't tell by
looking out the window either way (doesn't US ATC give distance in sm?)

Don't go head-to-head with a bad guy inside 9,000 ft, you'll hit him,
though how you spot 9,000 when it occupies roughly the same second as 3
sm and zero is a personal matter I suppose. If I recall correctly, bombs
fall and burst in meters and psi, and penetrate via fps. Radars give
range in nm, altitude in feet, while things like gating can still show
up in sm. Guns and rockets are in meters and fps, missiles are in feet
and mach (or is it the other way around?) Release altitude is in feet:
baro / MSL or AGL / radar depending on weapon type, fusing etc, though
that doesn't mean the slant-range won't be in meters, and the canopy
correction factor for the HUD is in diopters.

On your way there don't forget to be true if not magnetic, either way
where does your device of choice switch to great circle--and we still
keep that sextant handy when we get too far from land, if there is room
for it in the cockpit. Fuel in pounds, speed in mach number or knots,
OAT in Celsius for fuel flow calcs; your choice of ground, indicated,
calibrated or true to get things over into nm, which are the numbers the
strike package uses when flying tactically who cares anyway since that
doesn't include winds aloft which inertial or GPS can only reads
cumulative or instantaneous and weatherpersons (Fahrenheit and
millibars) are as reliable and truthful as lawyers. So for fuel, just
give me a number, preferably in minutes at my current (indicated)
airspeed, relative to the target / nearest suitable runway as I go
along: though lingering a few seconds too long in AB (that's re-heat
over in metric, zone five in swabby) converts everything into chapter
and verse (Psalms work well).

D. Garrett

Todd Bartrim wrote: