A question of height

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by Loco-S

Over the years I have noted that the altitudes given are relative to the terrain, not indicated altitude, check it out while landing, the altimeter will tell you the altitude over sea level, the "speed bar" will give you the altitude over the terrain.

That isn't true in my experience, I've crashed into the ground with a non-zero height in the speed bar many times, and quite often taken off from a height of 200 (metres I believe), in the speed bar. I don't usually use the altimeter in the cockpit for my height. The heights in the text coming "over the radio" don't match the speed bar. The speed bar, as I understand it, is the three lines of text (height, speed and heading) in the lower left of the screen.