Jumping in metres

I think the most important thing is to always be consistant within each domain.  The system that you learn at school is only important for short distances.  Everyone can appreciate 3m or 10 feet, but most people cannot really appreciate what is 300m or 1000 feet.  For beginners the distances that we use in parachuting are just numbers so as long as you always use the same units when parachuting it is okay regardless of what you learnt at school.  In the UK they have been teaching in meters for 50 years but still jump in feet.  So in France you jump at the number 4000, break off and track at the number 1500, stop tracking at about 1200 to 1100 and pull at 1000, if nothing has happened by 600 - panic.  The problem only occurs if like me you go and mix the two within the domain of parachuting.