PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Definition of ground speed
View Single Post
Old 21st Jun 2010, 15:57
  #2 (permalink)  
bumpyflight
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: United Kindom
Posts: 26
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Ground speed is the speed of an aircraft relative to the ground. It is the sum of the aircraft's true airspeed and the current wind and weather conditions; a headwind subtracts from the ground speed, while a tailwind adds to it. Winds at other angles to the heading will have components of either headwind or tailwind as well as a crosswind component.An airspeed indicator can only indicate the aircraft's movement within an air mass. The air mass as a whole may be moving over the ground due to wind, and therefore some additional means to provide position over the ground is required. This might be through navigation using landmarks, radio aided position location, inertial navigation system, or GPS. When more advanced technology is unavailable, an E6B flight computer is often used to calculate groundspeed
bumpyflight is offline