Pressure altitude

Pressure altitude is the altitude in the

International Standard Atmosphere (ISA)
with the same atmospheric pressure as
that of the part of the atmosphere in
question.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA) published the
following formula[1] for directly
converting atmospheric pressure in
millibars (mb) to pressure altitude in feet
(ft):
In aviation, pressure altitude is the height
above a standard datum plane (SDP),
which is a theoretical level where the
weight of the atmosphere is 29.921
inches of mercury (1,013.2 mbar;
14.696 psi) as measured by a
barometer.[2] It indicates altitude
obtained when an altimeter is set to an
agreed baseline pressure under certain
circumstances in which the aircraft’s
altimeter would be unable to give a
useful altitude readout. Examples would
be landing at a high altitude or near sea
level under conditions of exceptionally
high air pressure. Old altimeters were
typically limited to displaying the altitude
when set between 950 mb and 1030 mb.
Standard pressure, the baseline used
universally, is 1013.25 hectopascals
(hPa), which is equivalent to 1013.25 mb
or 29.92 inches of mercury (inHg). This
setting is equivalent to the atmospheric
pressure at mean sea level (MSL) in the
ISA. Pressure altitude is primarily used in
aircraft-performance calculations and in
high-altitude flight (i.e., above the
transition altitude).

Inverse equation
Solving the equation for the pressure
gives

where m are meter and hPa refers to

hecto-Pascal. This may be interpreted as
the lowest terms of the Taylor expansion
of

where exp is the exponential function.

QNE
QNE is an aeronautical code Q code. The
term refers to the indicated altitude at
the landing runway threshold when
 or is set in
the altimeter's Kollsman window. In other
words, it is the pressure altitude at the
landing runway threshold.

Most aviation texts for PPL and CPL

exams describe a process for finding the
pressure altitude (in feet) using the
following rule of thumb formula:

For example, if the airfield elevation is

and the altimeter setting is
, then
Alternatively,

For example, if the airfield elevation is

and the QNH is , then

Aircraft Mode “C” transponders report

the pressure altitude to air traffic control;
corrections for atmospheric pressure
variations are applied by the recipient of
the data.

The relationship between static pressure

and pressure altitude is defined in terms
of properties of the ISA.

See also
QNH
Flight level
Cabin altitude
Density altitude
Standard conditions for temperature
and pressure
Barometric formula

References
 1. "Pressure Altitude" (https://www.weather.
gov/media/epz/wxcalc/pressureAltitude.
pdf) (PDF).

2. Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical

Knowledge (FAA-H-8083-25B), 2016,
Chapter 4, p 4-4

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