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In Aviation there are nautical miles for ground distance, knots for speed and feet for altitude. But in US aviation there are also statute miles for airport
by naval-gazer 7y ago
In Aviation there are nautical miles for ground distance, knots for speed and feet for altitude. But in US aviation there are also statute miles for airport visibility and feet for runway visibility.
Customary units are bigger mess than imperial vs. metric.
- bnegreve 7y agoNautical miles make some sense because they are consistent with the lat./long. coordinate system (60 miles = 1° lat). For the rest, I'm not sure.
- newscracker 7y agoWould it be 60 miles for 1° in all locations for the latitude, considering that the earth is an ellipsoid/spheroid?
- simonblack 7y agoLatitude is measured along a Great Circle of Longitude - confusing isn't it? So the distance between (say) 10 and 30 degrees North is the same as the distance between 50 and 70 degrees North. The Latitude circles (in the 'horizontal' plane) get smaller as you go from Equator to the Poles, but all the Longitude Circles (in the 'vertical' plane') are all Great Circles and go through both the North and South Poles and so are all (pretty much) equal in size.