Are speed readouts in mph or km/h?

[Leon86 13]

let's make everything meters/sec. that way nobody can relate to it and we'll have the most elegant unit for calculation. :)

[ScareCroweb 10]

I can understand why nautical miles and knots are used in naval and air navigation, but what's the deal with using feet?

Its universal. feet's are used in all us aircraft's and they also use abbreviation like angels when someone says go to angels 5 it always means go to 5000 feet. it never means 5000 meters.

its the whole point of military traditions, that makes it effective. that all pilots understand eachother :)

for example the leader says: 2, go speed two five zero, angels two, it always means " 2 (wingman) make speed 250 knots and climb/dive to 2000 feet.

[duckmeister 10]

I play IL-2 Sturmovik a lot, and I have to say, with aircraft, using feet is a lot (and I mean A LOT) easier. I can imagine how much more useful it is with modern aircraft.

But on the ground, meters seem to work better, although it would be nice to compare my tank's speed with normal american highway speed without having to convert in my head. But it's a sacrifice I have to make. :D

[maturin 12]

I play IL-2 Sturmovik a lot, and I have to say, with aircraft, using feet is a lot (and I mean A LOT) easier. I can imagine how much more useful it is with modern aircraft.

Why would feet be easier? Rationally speaking, the greater the speed and distance involved, the more useful larger units are. Unless there's some usage I'm not aware of, aren't people just used to feet? It is American English that's the international language of flight.

[soul_assassin 1750]

Why would feet be easier? Rationally speaking, the greater the speed and distance involved, the more useful larger units are. Unless there's some usage I'm not aware of, aren't people just used to feet? It is American English that's the international language of flight.

Well for one, ATC separation rules are in feet, for example vertical separation of 1000 feet sounds better then approx 330 meters. So in case of aviation it actually makes sence to use feet because it leads to finer refinement of spaces. In a 1000 meters you have 1000 whole units meters but 3300 whole feet units. For large distances in altitude, the feet are actually shortened to 100's of feet also known as Flight Levels (FL) -> 16000 ft = FL160

Speaking of weird units, the one that takes the prize has to be Farenheit. Now that's one utterly useless and confusing unit. Based partly on the body heat of a horse :S

Edited March 14, 2011 by Soul_Assassin

[pooroldspike 129]

I play the IL-2 flight sim series too and you can toggle its data readout between metric and non-metric. So I use mph/feet because as a Brit i've been using it all my life and it's the only thing I can understand; I'm too far gone now to learn that metric krap..:)

[duckmeister 10]

Why would feet be easier? Rationally speaking, the greater the speed and distance involved, the more useful larger units are. Unless there's some usage I'm not aware of, aren't people just used to feet? It is American English that's the international language of flight.

It's easier for a combination of three reasons:

1. I'm used to it. Meters just seem too low, and my brain can't make the switch. Somebody calls out "he's 500 meters above us" and I just can't make the connection.

2. It is an international flight unit. Regardless of what other countries use on the ground, 99% of the time they are using feet as a unit of measurement.

3. Most importantly, IMO, it gives people what some would call a "better spatial sense". Even with someone who has used the metric system their entire life (or someone like me, who does a lot of chemistry), they have a much better sense of what 10,000 feet is (in height) than the equivalent in meters. I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but for most people, feet just seems to "click" better, if you know what I mean.

[Joe98 92]

3. Most importantly, IMO, it gives people what some would call a "better spatial sense".

Even with someone who has used the metric system their entire life

they have a much better sense of what 10,000 feet is (in height) than the equivalent in meters.

I disagree. I used feet and inches till I was 15 in 1975.

I can judge 1,000 meters. I cannot judge 10,000 feet.

I a sililair vein, I was recently in the US. A road sign read "1/4 mile to the next intersection". Whats that??? If it had read "so many yards" at least I could relate to it!

-

[noubernou 77]

3. Most importantly, IMO, it gives people what some would call a "better spatial sense". Even with someone who has used the metric system their entire life (or someone like me, who does a lot of chemistry), they have a much better sense of what 10,000 feet is (in height) than the equivalent in meters. I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but for most people, feet just seems to "click" better, if you know what I mean.

I really don't think that is true at all... I think thats your perception. :p

If someone grew up only using meters and other metric units then 10,000 feet would be just as unrecognizable as it is for you in meters... and meters for them would just "click".

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Sorry for long post, became inspired with old skills.

Canada does not. We use the SI system for almost everything, with a few throwbacks to the imperial system.

Not always a success story, that one... :p But of course, it really could have ended worse. Great coolness by the pilots to handle that situation.

I can understand why nautical miles and knots are used in naval and air navigation, but what's the deal with using feet?

Feet being used today is mostly tradition and partly convention with existing rules. As already said, nautical miles in navigation makes perfect sense due to earths division into angular meridians. Without going into details, this explains a lot (think of navigation using degrees °, 60 minutes ', and 60 seconds "):

Where did this come from? Navigating the oceans back in the day. Ships in shallow water often needed to measure depth, using a sounding line. You'd give it by pulling out rope one arm length at a time, a unit called fathoms. This unit happed to be 6.08 feet long, standardized to 6 feet. Later seamen learned to multiply and the fathom was dropped, using standardized feet (image, note top left corner) instead.

The key word, or rather, number, in all imperial units are 12 - nearly everything is somehow related to this number somehow in the form of a fraction. What's so great about 12? Metric 10 is awesome, right? Not really. 10 is only divisible by 2 and 5 to produce an integer. 12 gives 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 (well, 1.5 is debatable). So you have 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 8 furlongs in a mile, 4 rods in a chain, 36 inches in a yard.

Slightly side tracking. The connection to 12 is obvious. That's the main advantage the imperial system has over the metric one - dealing with head calculations, pluss conveying information into something understandable, especially in ancient times.

How long is a meter? "One ten-millionth of the distance from equator to north pole"? Wtf? Or "length of the path travelled by light in vacuum in 1â„299,792,458 of a second"? Wtf? Imperial (for conveying): How long is a foot? "One sixth of this lenght", stretches out arms (= 2 yards or 1 fathom). Now that's actually something I can relate to -I can see it without tools. But as we all know, imperial units absolutely suck for conversions and relations, but SI units shine brilliantly.

Dealing with the number 12 in simple arithmetic (you probably did 2+2 manually in kindergarden before you got your first calculator), long before the invention of the slide ruler (E6B being my tool of choice for some reason...), working with integers resulting in base 12 math is faster and simpler than working with metric base 10 math often dealing with fractions.

If you've payed attention, you'll notice that feet is a measurement of height, whereas yard is more used for distances (unrelated to navigation). A person is 5 feet tall. He crossed the 10 yard line. And their both connected via the number 12. So, feet for height.

And, altitude is height. And it kind of stuck as a measure of altitude. The reason it was never really changed is the number of "makes so much sense rules of thumb" calculations that are done in aviation. Based on knots for speed and nautical miles for distance, mixing in feet for altitude almost makes magic numbers appear.

That's pretty much the speech as I remember it from back in the day when I took flight lessons myself where we asked the question "why feet"? I won't guarantee its correctness, maybe he was just telling an awesome story (you had to be there, but most of it is way back there in the brain after all these years, so the approach wasn't all that wrong) But as I see it, it carries a lot of weight and makes a lot of sense. At least for me (not fully convinced about the integer math, but I'm used to SI system already, so...). Feel free to correct me though.

I do remember the teacher also mixing in loxodromes and great circle navigation, but I'm not sure if he referenced old or new school nautical navigation. So I left that part out.

Speaking of weird units, the one that takes the prize has to be Farenheit. Now that's one utterly useless and confusing unit. Based partly on the body heat of a horse

Yeah well, the world of units is one you really don't want to venture into. Farenheit being the weird one of today, but before standardization everything was messy :D Was it a warm blooded horse or a cold blooded one? :p I believe what scared off the imperial system was the difference in UK and US standards. English and international mile. Nautical mile. English nautical mile (wtf?). Roman mile.

Looking for weird? Memorize this, hehe...

Did I mention that the image shows different lengths units only? It's a funny funny world...

I play the IL-2 flight sim series too and you can toggle its data readout between metric and non-metric. So I use mph/feet because as a Brit i've been using it all my life and it's the only thing I can understand; I'm too far gone now to learn that metric krap..

And you should continue to. Everything in western flying is Imperial system. Russians use the Metric system for some reason, and I guess having it as a possibility attracts Russian players. A friend of mine flies (or flew, think they quit using it) the AN-2 Antonov for local parachutist club, and the Russian instrumentation needed some getting used to. Oh, the

... Edited March 14, 2011 by CarlGustaffa

[noubernou 77]

I actually prefer Fahrenheit to Celsius because it is a smaller increment of Kelvin than Celsius. You can have a more accurate description of the real temperature expressed as a whole number. :p

At least for weather broadcasts that is good.

[max power 21]

Eh? Depending on programming language installed in user, => could mean equal to or greater than.

It's not a programming language. It means becomes or moves to.

As in, as you zoom out, the scale starts at 100m and moves to 1 km.

Edited March 14, 2011 by Max Power

[soul_assassin 1750]

I actually prefer Fahrenheit to Celsius because it is a smaller increment of Kelvin than Celsius. You can have a more accurate description of the real temperature expressed as a whole number. :p

At least for weather broadcasts that is good.

This kind of accuracy isnt required for a quantity that can very well be different in two points on the same street

[duckmeister 10]

I disagree. I used feet and inches till I was 15 in 1975.

I can judge 1,000 meters. I cannot judge 10,000 feet.

I a sililair vein, I was recently in the US. A road sign read "1/4 mile to the next intersection". Whats that??? If it had read "so many yards" at least I could relate to it!

Did you read the part where I said "I know this doesn't apply to everyone..."?

I really don't think that is true at all... I think thats your perception. :p

If someone grew up only using meters and other metric units then 10,000 feet would be just as unrecognizable as it is for you in meters... and meters for them would just "click".

Why do the vast majority of countries use the imperial system in their aircraft? Did you read the rest of my post?

And you should continue to. Everything in western flying is Imperial system. Russians use the Metric system for some reason, and I guess having it as a possibility attracts Russian players.

This is because Oleg Maddox and his company (the developers of IL-2 Sturmovik) are Russian. The original version of IL-2 didn't have the option to switch to imperial, it was metric only. :D

[Beagle 684]

The original version of IL-2 didn't have the option to switch to imperial, it was metric only. :D

This was because the original IL-2 did not feature much US or british aircraft, it was for the most part a german vs. Russian design sim...both countries used metric at this time for aircrafts.

The reason why knots and feet was used in the western world as standard was simply to the fact that most nations did not build aircraft themselfs but imported them from US or GB. The first powered Aircraft build in germany after WWII in 1956 still used metric instruments.

Edited March 14, 2011 by Beagle

[duckmeister 10]

This was because the original IL-2 did not feature much US or british aircraft, it was for the most part a german vs. Russian design sim...both countries used metric at this time for aircrafts.

The reason why knots and feet was used in the western world as standard was simply to the fact that most nations did not build aircraft themselfs but imported them from US or GB. The first powered Aircraft build in germany after WWII in 1956 still used metric instruments.

Exactly.

[andersson 285]

http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1873759&postcount=35

Very good post, thank you!

I wouldnt mind if BIS changed the aircraft to imperial (except the russian aircraft), the boat to nautical and then kept a nice mix on vehicles depending on country of origin. But thats me.. (find it a bit funny when I always jump into the passenger seat in the brittish landrovers)