Altimeters: Sensitive vs. Non-Sensitive

A sensitive altimeter has a Kollsman window for displaying and a knob for setting local sea level reference pressure. Otherwise (1) as the aircraft flew into different conditions they would have inaccurate altitude. And (2) aircraft flying in the flight levels , above 18,000 feet, would not be able to set the 29.92 standard setting necessary for separation.

Pete

Based on this page from AS catalog I see both instruments having pressure adjusting features.

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/in/altimeters_falcon.html

I believe the difference is the clockworks of the two - insensitive having a single pointer and the sensitive having 2 or three hands with the much more complex gearing.  

Hmm....now i'm confused. Anybody have the correct answer?

skeeter

My C140 had an "insensitive" altimeter and my newer Davis has a sensitive altimeter.  The only difference I could find is with the "insensitive" altimeter, I could get close to the correct setting, but had to basically guess where the exact seting was.  For example, it might have a line at the 29.9 mark, but to get 29.92 you are basically guessing.

On my sensitive altimeter, there are lines for every 0.02, so I can pretty much hit a resolution of 0.01.

I do not know if this is officially the definition difference, but it is one thing I noticed (and makes a reasonable amount of sense).

"A sensitive altimeter is one with an adjustable barometric scale