QNH in China?
 

Might have a trip there in a few weeks and am wondering if China is QNH now? Heard they went to RVSM awhile back...

Also, anyone know a few good places to eat and shop Guangzhou?

Many Thanks!!!

Not sure what the 2 have to do with each other, but yes they are now RVSM and all the major airports use QNH. I think some of the smaller places still use QFE.

You'll find it's QFE at the military airports, otherwise it's all QNH.

The RVSM is a bit of a joke as you're constantly being off-set between two and ten miles off course. There a wee but paranoid about planes running into each other. . . amongst other thing's.

Lot's of places to eat. I've found some of the best bowls of soup (and unbelievably cheap) in the alley hawker stalls.

Their RVSM is a bit screwed up. They give you the altitude in meters but want you to fly in feet. So if you get a clearance to maintain 11 thousand 3 hundred meters, you have to use a chart to convert it to FL371. If you've got the fancy push button stuff, below the RVSM airspace you can just fly the assigned meters.

True Dat... Flew from Korea into ZSPD yesterday, got an offset, 5 miles Left, had to ask, Left? yes left, Hmmmm, never done that one before.... The Chinese do love their offsets, and they are just too proud to unscrew their RVSM and make it like the rest of the world.

Fly safe over here, we're all counting on you.

I've been offset 10 right and then been told by the following controller to offset 5 left after we crossed the FIR. That happens a fair bit on the way from Pudong to Tianjin. They specify a rate of decent, usually 2500 fpm for us. You'll end up way below profile with that one, then they'll hold you high during the approach. Basically, they are very bad at what they do.

My favorite radio transmission was from an Air China expat who was told to slow to 250 kts and descend at 2500 fpm; his answer was a rather abrupt "pick one!". I enjoyed that.

SabreDriver

Pride has nothing to do with it. The military, who owns the airspace, dictated that RVSM would have to be compatible with metric levels which is what drove the current system of RVSM. I fly there enough, I don't like it but it's their train set. Then again, in a biz jet most enroute is above FL401.

Fellow Sabre Driver, F-100 and Sabre 65

GF

Just for info,

You can pretty much ignore the rate of descent when issued by ATC. If they ask for 2000, give them about 1000. No one will notice, especially the controller. They love setting you up for TCAS problems.

My favorite call from PEK atc in my previous airline:

atc "dragon 908, what is your callsign"

us "ahhhh......dragon 908"

atc "dragon 908, thanks".

Koru - that smart arse comment may have been me. oops.

Now that's funny.