2000-11-23
This reminds me of a conversation I had last night with a guy at the gym.
He commutes weekly from Cleveland to Flint, Michigan and back. He had
returned to Cleveland earlier in the day because of the holiday. He was
telling me about the weather and how it effected the speed of the flight.
They had a strong tail wind and the plane was flying at 400-500 miles per
hour, faster than normal, and they arrived in Cleveland 0.5 h before they
were scheduled to. I did not ask how he knew the planes speed. I only
assumed the pilot must have announced it. But, I did ask him if he meant
nautical or statute miles, and his response was it was land miles, because
he is talking about ground speed.
At that point I dropped the subject. I felt it wasn't worth pursuing it
further, as I felt he wasn't aware that planes use nautical miles. I doubt
they use land miles to measure ground speed and knots for airspeed. That
would require an instrument be double calibrated, which means a high
probability of making an error. And I doubt even more the pilot goes
through the effort to convert one form of miles to another. I'm sure if
someone were to approach a pilot about it, he would admit that he meant
nautical units.
Even if the pilot had said knots to the passengers, they might not know what
that word means. If he says nautical miles, most would ignore the word
nautical and here miles and assume it is land miles, as that is the only
type they know. And I'm sure no one would feel mislead if they assumed that
land miles was the only type of mile and later found out there is more.
I wonder how many people think a nautical mile and land mile are one and the
same, except the term nautical is used to designate a distance over water or
through the air. Nautical could be interpreted as meaning a more straight
distance (as the crow flies), as opposed to distances measured on land that
more than often follow the various curves and contours of the land.
I think we should ask people we enter into simple conversation with if they
know if there is a difference between the two miles and what it might be.
This would be a fun game.
John
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of James R.Frysinger
Sent: Wednesday, 2000-11-22 12:10
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:9295] RE: Another space disaster from unit confusion?
But not furlong!
Jim
On Wed, 22 Nov 2000, Bill Potts wrote:
> I guess when you have a mix up between a statute mile and a
nautical mile,
> you can very easily miss by a country mile.
>
> (I read that one too.)
>
> Bill Potts, CMS
> San Jose, CA
> http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> > Behalf Of James R. Frysinger
> > Sent: November 22, 2000 06:02
> > To: U.S. Metric Association
> > Subject: [USMA:9289] Another space disaster from unit confusion?
> >
> >
> > On the Metrology Forum I subscribe to, a participant posted an allusion
> > to an early Space Wars disaster during Reagan's term. Apparently, the
> > ground controllers for the land-based laser used one kind of mile (or
> > other unit of measurement) and the target satellite people used another
> > kind of mile during one of the system's first tests, resulting
in a wide
> > "miss" by the laser beam. Does anyone recall or know anything
about this
> > alleged event?
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > --
> > Metric Methods(SM) "Don't be late to metricate!"
> > James R. Frysinger, CAMS http://www.metricmethods.com/
> > 10 Captiva Row e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Charleston, SC 29407 phone/FAX: 843.225.6789
> >
> >
--
James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston
10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street
843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424
http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
