Measurment question......................

[Staffan 12]

Hi,One thing thst struk my mind resently has somewhat to do with flightsim, and surely to do with real life.....How come that the measurment can not be the same on land sea and air? I mean, why is it that in air and on sea the measurment is nautical miles, and on land, kilometers or miles? Why couldn

[Guest Lizardo]

There's several reasons, historically. (though no good ones now, haha). At the equator, each 15 degrees = 60 nautical miles. (I have no idea what they did with the "left over"). Nautical miles are based on fathoms. A fathom is 6 feet..the width between a sailor's out-stretched hands, where a "knot" was tied to measure distance. Hence "knots". The best maps at the beginning of flight were naval charts, and the first chap to fly the English Channel was put down on the customs form as the "Master" of the yatch "Monoplane". Which explains, haha...except for why we still use it.

[Guest Grey_Wolf]

Knots is also typically only used on vehicles that do not travel on ground, Partly because of terrain/ contours. One US Mile would streach further across the water or in the air than overland Because of the hills and the uneveness.

[Guest jaapverduijn]

Oh no, not this "changing length of measurements" thing again... How sad an example of the infathomable depths the school, college and university educations in our Western world have sunk to...Jaap Verduijn.

[Guest Lizardo]

And excellent point there, Grey!.....it had totally escaped me. If not for that we'd have to talk in "air miles" and "land miles"

[Guest jaapverduijn]

Lizardo, Grey is totally wrong, and you're making it worse. A nautical mile is a nautical mile, whether on land, in the air, in space, or at sea. A "land" mile is a land mile, whether on land, in the air, in space, or at sea. A kilometer is a kilometer, whether on land, in the air, in space, or at sea.These measures are FIXED, and do not change with either the height above sea level, or the hills and mountains in the terrain, or the number of children you've got (grin)!The whole issue as started by Grey and perpetuated by you, is nonsense. Indeed a sad example of the sorry lack of quality of modern "education". Jaap Verduijn.

[Guest jaapverduijn]

Greetings Lizardo!"(...) where a "knot" was tied to measure distance. Hence "knots" (...)"A knot is not a measure of distance. It's a measure of speed: 1 knot is 1 nautical mile per hour.Be, stay, live and hour well!Jaap Verduijn.

[Dark Moment 0]

I don't often write in this vein, but is does seem that "old education" must have forgotten manners and politeness in some places.Mark "Dark Moment" BeaumontP.S. In response to Message 8: Aha, yes. The penny has just dropped.http://www.swiremariners.com/cxkaitak.htmlhttp://www.swiremariners.com/cxkaitakv3.jpg

[Guest RonB49]

Mark, consider the source and its history. R-

[Guest Lizardo]

Well, we DID put men on the moon with it, so not TOO shabby :-)

[Guest jaapverduijn]

Do you really believe too, that a US mile is longer over water than over land? Good heavens.If you don't agree with my way of pointing out this nonsense, why don't YOU explain it in a way that you consider right? I'll be happy to see your contribution to the subject of this thread.Jaap Verduijn.

[Guest jaapverduijn]

Greetings Staffan!Eventually such unification will happen, but it takes time. Different countries started out with different measures, and some countries are slower than others to see the advantages of both standardizing and a decimal system. Compared with a century ago, the standardization is already enormous, even relatively recently Australia rid itself of the mile and adopted the kilometer. I don't know how old you are, but if you're something like my age you will remember vividly how traffic in your country kept the left side of the road. They changed it overnight: a VERY efficient example of quick standardization!You're right, these remaining different measures make no sense. They have also proved to be potentially dangerous, especially in countries where science uses decimal measures while industry sticks to inches. Science and industry often overlap, and there are sad examples of measurements being mixed up, with disastrous results...Resistance against standardization is mainly political. And politics change VERY slowly.Be, stay, live and slowly well!Jaap Verduijn.

[Guest]

Lizardo, At the equator, 1 degree, not 15, equals 60 nautical miles. Split the world in half at the equator and divide it into 360 parts, each being 1 degree, and then divide each degree into 60 parts, each being 1 minute. Each of those minutes is 1 nautical mile. In practice, because of the difference in diamter found by slicing the earth along the poles (about 23 miles), the official nautical miles is taken to be the average of the two (polar and equatorial) and is: 6067 feet or 1.15 statute miles. As far as a "knot'goes, long ago the only way to measure a ship's speed was to throw a piece of woodinto the water and observe howfast it moved away. The wood, or "log", was attached to the reel of rope that had knots tied at equal distances. By counting the numberf knots that went overboard in given time interval, measured by a sand glass, you could tell the ship's speed in "knots". Usually the knots were ties every 50 feet and the sand glass measured 30 second. This worked out by some form of math I can't do to mean that the number of knots in the rope that went overboard in 30 second equaled the number of nautucal miles per hour the ship was going. Of course, none of this was exact, but it worked well enough. Bob

[Guest]

Yup.......--------------Paul Meyerwww.KryptonAir.comYou need Webspace, I'll lend you some!Contact webmaster@kryptonair.com

[Staffan 12]

Hello Jaap,Well, I did not expect that this thread should express so many different facts. ;-)But one thing I am sure of, is that a mile, kilometer and nautical mile is the same on land, air and sea...Yes, I remember clearly when all traffic changed from left to right. That happened here in Sweden in 1967, and I was 10 years old. :-)It seams that the measurment question is a quite delicate one. Just as which world language we all should have....sorry to the french people, but english will always be the world language. :-lol No offence ment. ;-) And why does some countries still have left traffic?Why couldn