Question about Zulu time

BlackManINC said:
Ok, now we're getting somewhere, I honestly have no idea what that one pilot was talking about in that video. This makes it so much easier. Come to think of it, I don't even see why it was drilled in our heads about time zones in the dispatch course if its irrelevant when it comes to getting the ETA for weather reports in the first place. So I only have to worry about adding hours if I'm crossing the oceans. Gotcha
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Or if Zulu rolls past midnight at the destination it would be the "next day".

Example would be leaving a place at 2300Z for a two hour flight. You'll land at 0100Z the next Zulu day. Which may not be the same date as the local time zone is in.

It's actually the *reason* aviation uses Zulu (and a number of other things). If I tell you I am going to call you at 0500Z you know I'm calling you in about ten minutes from now. Doesn't matter what time zone you're in.

Here's a couple of screenshots taken a couple of seconds apart just now that show it.

Zulu and Denver local on the first one, Eastern Time zone, Mountain Time zone, and Hong Kong on the second screen.

They're all "at the same time" ignoring the seconds since I can't screenshot two screens that fast! Grin...

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1457325896.915286.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1457325906.264116.jpg
 
denverpilot said:
Or if Zulu rolls past midnight at the destination it would be the "next day".

Example would be leaving a place at 2300Z for a two hour flight. You'll land at 0100Z the next Zulu day. Which may not be the same date as the local time zone is in.

It's actually the *reason* aviation uses Zulu (and a number of other things). If I tell you I am going to call you at 0500Z you know I'm calling you in about ten minutes from now. Doesn't matter what time zone you're in.

Here's a couple of screenshots taken a couple of seconds apart just now that show it.

Zulu and Denver local on the first one, Eastern Time zone, Mountain Time zone, and Hong Kong on the second screen.

They're all "at the same time" ignoring the seconds since I can't screenshot two screens that fast! Grin...

View attachment 44401View attachment 44402
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I see, well this is how it was explained in the course, it just wasn't exactly clear as to how we were to apply it to getting the ETA for the weather reports. So problem solved :)
 
Everskyward said:
Just think of Zulu as a time zone. In fact it is the time zone in Greenwich, England.
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Which by the way does not have a Daylight savings time. It is static. No spring forward, fall back. You might also see the reference UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) in older documentaion.
 
Matthew said:
I took a ground school class at a local junior college. I remember the practice questions and other discussions about Z-time. It's made out to be much more complicated than it has to be. It's just another time zone. But when the questions are always about converting local to Z and back to local across multiple time zones it's easy for a beginner to get lost. The hardest part about it for me is trying to remember if I'm on DST or not. I have a dual timezone watch and set one side to Z all the time.
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The hardest thing for me is setting the correct offset. Is it summer on, summer off, is gmt set correctly? It usually takes me fiddling with the damned watch for a couple of days to get the times correct.
 
What is this "daylight savings time" of which you speak? :confused:

<---- note location
 
:D In the old format it was displayed...didn't notice it wasn't now. Arizona.
 
silver-eagle said:
The hardest thing for me is setting the correct offset. Is it summer on, summer off, is gmt set correctly? It usually takes me fiddling with the damned watch for a couple of days to get the times correct.
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No kidding. And we get to re-learn again this weekend.

Fortunately, I can push a button on my watch to switch to a 2nd timezone and see both at the same time. Of course, as I look at my watch right now I see that the battery has died.
 
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I had a watch that had two time zones. I kept it at local and Zulu. Worked well.
 
coloradobluesky said:
I had a watch that had two time zones. I kept it at local and Zulu. Worked well.
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I sometimes set my clocks in the house to Zulu. Freaks people out when they think they are 4 (or five) hours late to get wherever.
 
My favorite time zone follies story is stolen directly from a letter to the editor in the local newspaper years ago. Seems this woman's elderly father was unable to set the clocks back or forward a full hour... the resulting disruption to his life was too much. So he set the clock forward or back fifteen minutes a night for four consecutive nights.

Fine.... except he did not remember if he was setting it forward or backwards, and he lost count of how many consecutive changes he had made. As a result, he was not on the correct time for weeks. I'm sorry I did not save the newspaper as the humor in the letter was quite literally timeless!

-Skip
 
Everskyward said:
Just think of Zulu as a time zone. In fact it is the time zone in Greenwich, England.
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Almost. Greenwich does in fact have a "summer time," along with continental Europe. Z (and GMT) is always Z. Greenwich follows BST in summer, not GMT.

If you want some real fun, try planning dates in Z. Almost all our flights take off after 0000Z, so they all look like the next day.

Z really is essential when you start coordinating over multiple time zones.
 
MAKG1 said:
Almost. Greenwich does in fact have a "summer time," along with continental Europe. Z (and GMT) is always Z. Greenwich follows BST in summer, not GMT.

If you want some real fun, try planning dates in Z. Almost all our flights take off after 0000Z, so they all look like the next day.

Z really is essential when you start coordinating over multiple time zones.
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Or when you want an extra month of currency. ;)
 
silver-eagle said:
Which by the way does not have a Daylight savings time. It is static. No spring forward, fall back. You might also see the reference UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) in older documentaion.
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What's funny about that is, the actual town of Greenwich actually DOES follow the Brit's version of DST, and the town itself does NOT use Zulu time year-round.

There's your trivia for the day... :p

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/uk/greenwich-city
 
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