We were getting a bit high under the airway so I decided it was time to impress the instructor.

"I'll just put the altimeter on QNE."

"What's QNE?"

Now I could really impress him.

"1013 millibars."

"Leave it alone. It's all right. We've still got another thousand feet. You just take the altimeter setting from 1013 and multiply by 30."

"Oh yes of course." I muttered whilst thinking '1013 minus 985 times 30 plus 3400 !?! Who are these people? I'm supposed to be flying an aeroplane for heavens sake.'

There has to be a simpler answer. On my paragliding altimeter I just had to flip a switch. It was hard enough learning gliding but airborne impressions of Carol Vorderman are definitely beyond the call of duty.

Relax, there was an answer. Lurking in my paragliding 'seemed useful at the time' box was a simple altimeter made by Diplex. Costing about £25 these go up to 8000 feet in one revolution and are set by twisting the scale. They are quite accurate and can be fixed at one pressure setting with a piece of tape and velcroed to the instrument panel. The other ingredient (just in case!) is a piece of wing tape above the main altimeter. The procedure at daily inspection (before take-off) is then this.

1) Set the main altimeter to zero feet and write the setting on the tape (QFE).

2) Set the main altimeter to read airfield height and write the setting on the tape(QNH).

3) Set the main altimeter to 1013 (QNE), check that the Diplex reads the same and adjust and tape it if not.

4) Reset the main altimeter to zero.

My main altimeter now reads height above the airfield and my Diplex reads flight level. No fiddling with knobs, no tight skirts and flirting with presenters and the hard bit was done on the ground. All that remains to be done is the occasional check to make sure that the Diplex reading is sufficiently close to that of the main altimeter (when set to 1013) at the sort of heights where it counts, and answer the fan mail of course!