TIME STAMP

That's a common problem for everyone flying over the North Pole - not sure about the South, assume it's the same there: all those assigned to a fixed base in the vicinity of the Pole use time at their base. All others use UTC (GMT) over the pole and within a circle around it - not sure how big the circle is.

A ship is required to adopt the standard time of a country when it is in its territorial waters (but must revert to nautical time as soon as it leaves territorial waters) - I think that it's the same with planes.

And both poles are in the GMT/UTC zone (= Z-time).

[Nautical time zones change in one-hour steps corresponding to a time zone width of 15° longitude.]

That's interesting - I'll take your word on ship times, knowing nothing about them. Btw, you'll enjoy this thread on an atomic clock gone haywire - fortunately all missing info was finally provided by the US Naval Observatory, keeper of the clocks around here. You'll like the little cartoon at the end (my last post there right now) too, I think: http://able2know.org/topic/142860-1

I cant speak for large jet aircraft but the aircraft clock is only adjusted on landing and the paperwork is signed off in the local time with the applicable designation after it. eg. 221816MAR10 K ( 22nd 18:16 hrs March 2010 australian eastern standard time). The time zones are given a letter. I cant see how changing times mid flight would be any advantage for navigating or crew awareness. We certainly didnt do it in helicopters. I think it would be detrimental to constantly change the clock and then factor something like losing an hour into navigation. Far easier to navigate from the clock and adjust it when at your destination. You cant stay up there that long. You also have a wrist watch for backup and other crew members can adjust their watch if it is essential for some reason.

No problem with that - you're just "staying" within your once set nautical time zone (here: 'K').

On ships, navigation is done always in 'Z' (GMT/UTC).

The advantage for navigation certainly only happens when you use terrestrial navigational methods ...

Otherwise, it's of course convenient when all (units) use the same time zone, 'Z' within the NATO-forces (and local time when communicating with land, civil).

Acknowledged. Large aircraft allow for the curvature and rotation of the earth in their navigation. Zulu was used at times when we couldnt agree on what time zone we were in. I wonder if large aircraft use zulu ? It would alleviate a lot of problems in co-ordination and navigation but control towers definitely use local time, although requests to report are usually sent for crossing a location, achieving an altitude, or a specific time after take-off eg 30 mins out.

Yes, at the Anglo-French Conference on Time-keeping at Sea in 1917.