How High Are We, REALLY?

True Altitude was something that always seemed to trip us up in ground school, but it's not actually that difficult.  In fact, if you read the instructions on your E6B, you're already more than half-way there!

True Altitude is particularly important when there are abnormally cold temperatures.  Usually the scenarios presented involve leveling off at a MEA, flying over a ridge, and realizing that you don't have nearly the amount of altitude clearance as you might have expected because it's -40. 

4 simple steps:

1. set air temperature over pressure altitude (make sure you're using the correct side!)
2. read true altitude over calibrated altitude scale (calibrated = planned - height of altimeter source)
3. add result of (2.) to height of altimeter source
4. subtract height of ridge to get ridge clearance

I'm tagging this both SAMRA and SARON because it fits in both Meteorology and Flight Operations.  So it could come up anywhere!