Knots


Knots or Nautical Miles:

Knots and nautical miles are old terms that were first used with sailors, but are now used with pilots as well. A knot measures speed, and if you are traveling at one nautical mile per hour, you are traveling at the speed of one knot.

Nautical miles are based on the 360 degrees of the Earth's circumference at the equator. Each degree can be divided into 60 minutes of latitude. Each minute of latitude is equal to one nautical mile.  

A nautical mile is 1.1508 miles. The Earth's circumference at the equator is 21,600 nautical miles or 24,857 miles.

Obviously, knots and nautical miles are not something you can take a picture of! But whenever I think of them, I think about the very large map of the U.S. in my husband's office. He is able to tell how far something is from home by taking a piece of string that is tacked to the map (at our house) and stretching it to wherever he wants to fly. From the length of the string, he is able to tell how many nautical miles the place is from home (nautical miles--the number of minutes of latitude it is from home). Combining that with the speed in knots that our airplane flies, he can determine how long it will take to fly to wherever he wants to go. 

Although the instruments in our airplane measure knots and nautical miles, they also measure statute miles and miles-per-hour. More often than not, those are the readings Mike uses when flying, rather than the old nautical terminology. 
  



Comments

  1. Life SPWApril 12, 2014 at 5:40 PM

    I have really enjoyed reading your A to Z posts. I also accessed some of your older posts and enjoyed reading them as well. Happy landings!

    ReplyDelete
  2. MelindaApril 13, 2014 at 11:06 AM

    Interesting information.
    Looking forward to more.

    M :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sharon HimslApril 15, 2014 at 9:50 AM

    Having sailed too, I always found knots and nautical miles confusing. Good description. Thanks!
    Shells–Tales–Sails

    ReplyDelete

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