Windspeed MPH ot Knots

As a total rookie to this flying lark I am just about getting used to everybody talking in Kilometres for distance. What happened to the good old-fashioned mile?

I would like to see mph retained on the Windy stations as opposed to knots. A knot is one Nautical mile per hour. A Nautical mile is 1/8th longer than a standard mile (1 nautical mile = 1.1515 miles). This means that 10 knots is equivalent to 11.5 mph. Although the difference is small it is worth noting. All land activities use the statute (geographical) mile and considering most flying is done over land I think wind speed readings should be given in mph. I assume that most conventional aircraft use knots as they cover both land and sea and different hemispheres of the globe. Because the Earth is not a perfect sphere, various values have been assigned to the nautical mile. The value 1852 meters (6076.1 ft.) has been adopted internationally. There may be some old sea dogs though who prefer knots or Kph, but I'll be behind Canute holding his chair.

I hid it in my harness pouch

.>I would like to see mph retained on the Windy stations as opposed to knots.

And I would like a wind station at every launch site within 100 miles of my home.

Damn I guess it wasn't soarable today when I launched into 20 - 25 Knots. I should have sat down and thought about all this instead of launching I guess.

Call me up and I'll give them to you in MPH.

Let me the hell off then.

<Sarcasm mode OFF> Get off the ground where all this stuff doesn't matter.

Depends where you are Rick.

What is a Mile?. We work in kilometres here but measure airspeed by knots, and the HGers talk feet for altitude and climb and the PGers talk meters. But flying 100miles must be sweater than K's.

A nautical mile is a fixed distance, it is the distance between 1 minute of longitude at the earth's equator. It is also the distance between 1 minute of latitude all over the earth. Nautical miles are used in navigation, because it's far easier to figure out distances in nautical miles than in any other unit when travelling between two points. On land we don't really travel between points or navigate, we just stay on roads for X distance until we arrive. I really don't have any idea why statue miles came into use, but they don't help anyone when navigating, and kilometers help even less, since they are not based on geography at all.

If you want to calculate how far you have flown, you use starting location in Lattitude and Longitude and final Lat. & Long. to determine total distance. You will end up with a distance in nautical miles. If you want it in statute miles, you have to convert from nautical to statue miles.

I know this doesn't really help, but at least you know why knots and nautical miles are used when flying.

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Sticky Dates please.

This echoes the discussion on Europg ,where I questioned why, in the UK, HG's talk about their XC distances in Miles, and PG's use Kilometres.

I reckon it's 'cos km looks better!

There is another possibility, though - At the start of PG activity i nthe UK, most were Parascenders, who operated at military airfields, towing up chutes, and came from a military background.

The military think in Km (Klicks) - so maybe that tradition grew up in PG circles, and newcomers did what the existing fliers did...

I run the national chain of Wendy Windblows weather stations in the UK ('Windys' to those in US?)

- which sit on many flying sites (over 20 now) and give out all the usual stuff -

windspeed and direction now Max and min gusts over last 30 mins wind history over 90 mins temperatures height of cloudbase sky state (sunny or cloudy, etc) rainfall

I set the HGPG sites in MPH, as that's what the vast majority of HG, and (most) PG think in.

I have some stations at sailing/windsurfing places though, and the users there prefer Knots, AND Beaufort Force to be given, not MPH.

No one anywhere, except the odd continental PG type, asks for Km/Hr, or M/Sec, although I can do that no problem.

- Rod Buck

By all means:
http://www.wendywindblows.com

- Rod Buck

Do you have a Web site detailing the Windblows?

Tex