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Knots are for boats!
I have been bothered by the change from miles per hour to knots for speed values for aircraft for more than 35 years. Lets bring back miles per hour for aircraft. For example, since most people reference speed using miles per hour, advertising a speed in knots for new aircraft is penalizing their perceived capability. For example, the listed maximum cruise speed for the Cessna Citation Ten is 527 knots or it is 605 miles per hour. Which sounds more impressive? To me it is 605 mph. What do you think?
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......which sounds even better as 974kph (which is more commonly used worldwide than mph).
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The metric system is the only way. The Russians are way ahead of us. Miles and knots are from the past. As are gallons, stones, yards, feet and inches.
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Haven't used mph for 40 years. Knots or kph for me please. A few hundred million Americans might be happy with mph but hundreds of millions more non Americans won't.
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For me it comes down to using the graticule scale on a chart for measuring distance. One minute of one degree of latitude equals one nautical mile, therefore the use of knots makes perfect sense.
P.S. I can't agree that the metric system is the only way to go. |
The metric system is a scurvy French idea brought to us by a Corsican defeated by Lord Wellington. Unfortunately, Napolean is getting his revenge.
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Totally agree with 27/09.
As long as we're navigating with nautical miles it makes more sense to use knots. The metric system is useful in other applications (lab work for one). But whatever the case, we should ALL be using the same measurements (China, I'm looking at YOU). :hmm: |
27/09...agree
and folks, DME is in knots also, descent tables for ILS glideslopes can be approximated by using ground speed IN KNOTS time 5 for descent rate in FPM. I remember the changeover...hated it then...happy about it now. also, wasn't it "the high and the mighty" where the navigator makes a mistake in converting miles to knots and screws up things? |
Until they rejigger the whole system of positioning away from latitude and divide the points of the compass and bearings into something like 100 or 1000 units, the knot will stay. And rightly so, otherwise I would have to buy new charts, a new gps and a new compass for my boat and my bugsmasher.
Statute miles are up there with leagues and cubits as an outdated measure of distance. Like gallons and lbs. Km is alright for cars, but is pretty useless in the middle of an ocean. When the USA was the leading builder of aircraft they could get away with mph, but if they went back to that now, they would lose even more sales to those pesky foreigners. |
"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it."
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a bit off topic but since someone mentioned the metric system. It seems pretty stupid why metric using countries like China issue altitudes in Metres but Rate of descent or Climb instructions in feet per minute. yeah i know the VSI if in fpm in most aircarft but so is the Altimeter. Make up your mind. Either metres or feet
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In Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett had his man keeping the rod locked in a stone shed. Careful with it, they were. Trouble was, it wasn't quite the same length as the rod in the next town. Then there's time and the railway.
The world will have to be divided up metrically one day. Charts will all be on iPad type things, and correct for curvature as one sweeps the locations. Coming from the days of ink pens and curved localizer tracks, I welcome the technology. Mind you, Miles per Gallon should be absolved from all requirements governing change. |
With all the inability to agree on one of the already present units of measurement, maybe it would be better to find something new for widespread use?
There are so many possibilities ranging from Angström/week via Stadions/Olympiad to A. U./Indiction, there is surely one to be found that no-one in the world has ever used and consequently is not ideologically burdened and may be introduced worldwide? |
Knots are a perfectly acceptable and sensible method of expressing speeds for aviation. Before changing that perhaps it would make more sense for the Yanqis to adopt metric measures and weights for fuel rather than using the US gallon measurement which is easily confused with the proper gallon which even us Brits have largely given up on (as it would cause us a severe brain haemorrhage and fit o rage) when buying petrol for our cars as it currently cost about £6.50 per gallon.
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For me it comes down to using the graticule scale on a chart for measuring distance. One minute of one degree of latitude equals one nautical mile, therefore the use of knots makes perfect sense. The International Nautical Mile, last time I checked, is defined as 1852 metres (no doubt the eurokrats got their hands on this definition!). That said I agree with your reasoning for sticking with nautical miles and knots - "miles per hour" was an awful American invention. |
Knots are for boats!
rsiano: Not a particularly accurate statement, '27/09'. 'zerozero', 'sevenstrokeroll' (eh!) and 'mach E avelli' are correct, knots are for NAVIGATION.
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It actually makes sense to have a variety of systems of measurement in use for different things... For example, RVR and visibility are expressed in meters, speed in knots, altitudes in feet.
If you hear someone say 10,000 Feet, you know they must be talking about altitude (generally speaking). If you hear 100m, its likely to be RVR etc etc. |
If you hear someone say 10,000 Feet, you know they must be talking about altitude (generally speaking). If you hear 100m, its likely to be RVR etc etc. |
RVR 300' ( 91 m ) wow that's way below CAT3B territory and I think you'd be told "RVR 300 feet". Couldn't even takeoff with 300' RVR :eek:
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If you hear someone say 10,000 Feet, you know they must be talking about altitude (generally speaking). If you hear 100m, its likely to be RVR etc etc. You could also hear 300ft in the US. Now is that cloud base, or RVR? use knots for speed, miles (nautical miles preferably) for distance, feet for altitude, meters for RVR, feet per minute for climb/descent. Then, you know what's being talked about based on the unit of measure. Of course, if you grew up in the US, it's hard to judge distance by meters, because they're aren't exactly yards... and if you grew up elsewhere it's hard to judge height by feet, because you have to divide by 3 (approximately). |
Why not measure in multiples of "Wales"? You often hear people/media describing places relative to the size of Wales (I recall Australian farms often being described as x times the size of Wales).
Your common or garden jet would travel approx 3 Wales/hr, a turboprop would be about 2 Wales/hr. Height could be measured in fractions of Wales's. Just a thought. |
I vote for Warp Factor..
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I vote for Warp Factor.. |
I grew up in metric, but obviously comfortably use feet and knots in my flying. However, you often hear in t he UK and the US "I can't think in metres" and how they can't gage it. Exactly the same problem I have in feet - I can't gage a distance in it without first doing the conversion from meters.
But there's a simple solution for you guys and everyone could use meters tomorrow in the old "Farenheit"-belt of the world; Because you can all use yards, right? A yard is a meter! |
Not too sure that a yard equals a meter. Could we settle on fathoms? ;)
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I would like to see them dump the mag compass headings and magvar...
with grid north and GPS, the whole mag nomenclature for runways is a real pain, especially when it switches, and they re-name the runways.... |
Prefer knots for flying. Although grew up with feet/inches/yards, the metric system is just fine--base ten arithmetic works every time!
Don't mind visibility in metric but I do prefer the FLs the way they are (in other words not in meters). For me it is just simpler to use. Always a bit of a thinking exercise when flying into or through China's airspace. Much easier now going through Russia's and I might be wrong about this, but it seems the controllers like it as well. |
Metric system
Uncle Fred, I am sure you must have seen it in Vendee also, the French, in the home of the metric system, have invented a new non-metric system of distance measurement - The Minute !
All over we see direction signs to McD, Intermarché, Leclerc etc "au feu a droite, 2mn" (at the traffic signal, turn right, 2minutes) although if anybody tried to achieve those timings they would suspect that, being patriotic, they must have asked Air France to calculate the 'distance' daved |
RVR 300' ( 91 m ) wow that's way below CAT3B territory and I think you'd be told "RVR 300 feet". Couldn't even takeoff with 300' RVR |
Flew an aircraft many years ago where we uplifted fuel in litres, calculated it in kg, the main tanks were gauged in Imp gal, and the aux tanks in USG. My brain hurt. Having then flown for many years using runway lenth in metres, I moved to a company which used manuals direct from Boeing (this in the UK) and I had to start thinking in feet. Counterintuitive.
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Seconds, minutes, feet in nautical miles (ish), degrees of latitude - can I stick with knots please?
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On a septic web forum a few years ago a native pointed out that the handy 345 triangle trick wouldn't work in metric. He went quiet when I pointed out that it would work with Cornflake packets.
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Isn't the whole point of a 345 triangle that it is devoid of the need for specific units of linear measurement? They could be in Millimeters or Cables (tenth of a nm) and still give the correct ratios for Mr Pythagoras's wonderful triangle.
Just wait until some brown job artillery wallah comes along and tries to convince you that Mils are better than Deg, Min, Sec of arc. You will then get the tedious explanation about a Metre being one ten-millionth of the meridion that passes through somewhere called Paris and how easy it is to pace it out on an OS map or NATO JOG chart. He (or possibly she these days) should be told that metres are too bloody small for anything horizontal and too big for anything vertical. |
Yep.
Fun can still be had though. Surveyor friend asked me to help him lay out a site. Field into 'plots'. And although a more than successful yachtsman and navigator, it became apparent that 345 didn't feature in his knowledge. Sent him off with the tape reel and giving him different multiples of 3,4 and 5 on each occasion that we had to establish a right angle. Wish I'd videoed it. The more that I hysterically giggled, the larger the multiple had to be so that he couldn't hear me. I've never actually confessed to it... Until now. Colin. |
Uncle Fred, I am sure you must have seen it in Vendee also, the French, in the home of the metric system, have invented a new non-metric system of distance measurement - The Minute ! All over we see direction signs to McD, Intermarché, Leclerc etc "au feu a droite, 2mn" (at the traffic signal, turn right, 2minutes) although if anybody tried to achieve those timings they would suspect that, being patriotic, they must have asked Air France to calculate the 'distance' daved Ah yes, the French minute--un peu de temps! Fungible, with plasticity, without fixed interval...it has a character of its own but does add a element of relaxation to the proceedings. Reminds me of the quote from Gustav Flaubert Une minute--On ne se doute pas comme c'est long, une minute |
I believe, in principle at least, that the Chinese are going to use feet for altitude at some unspecified date in the future. Same goes for WGS84 co-ordinates.
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'Lets break the sound barrier first then we can talk about warp factor'
That was done a few years ago actually :confused: |
As a Gunner (RA) I was around when we changed in the early 1960s from yards (NOT equal to a metre!) and degrees, to metres and mils (6,400 in a circle, vs 360X60X60 seconds). The simplicity of the shell-lobbing arithmetic from that moment was wonderful. Metres have a scientific basis as a measurement constant and navigation tool, just as knots do. Statute miles, yards, feet and inches are something to do with how Roman soldiers would yomp along and other measures that meant something 2,000 years ago, and they belong in that time. I navigate my boat in knots/nautical miles, because I locate myself using latitude and longitude, and so does my GPS when it's not on some national grid or another. My aircraft, when I owned one, measured speed in knots so I navigated in nautical miles. If I'm using a map on land I navigate in metres/kilometres/kph because, in the UK and most other countries I plod around in, the grid and vertical measurements on the map are metric. And thank God for that. |
Parabellum:-- nope no confusion mate. CAT 3B at KJFK still requires at least 600' RVR to "commence the approach" you cannot commence any approach on the planet in zero zero.!!
Any approach below 1000' can be continued to minima for a look see if the RVR falls below minima. CAT 3B on the other hand can continue to land as visual ref is not needed until after nose wheel touchdown. Although you'd be pretty brave to land in zero zero CAT 3B... |
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