|
Hi, Dom et al!
Do not confuse the subject with
menstration! OK, a nautical mile is the length of the average minute of arc of
latitude. Big deal! And an inch is the distance from the tip of the king's thumb
to the first knuckle (take note, you royalists!), a meter is the in-vacuo
wavelength of a given number of oscillations of the transition between two
energy levels of Krypton 86 and shoe sizes are measured in barleycorns! And the
international nautical mile is 1852 meters, except for the Brits (see previous
paranthetical phrase), who consider it to be 6080 feet! Those are all
arbitrary values, just as is the length of the second which is used to come up
with these values, just as was the decision to change our ASIs from mph to
kts on this side of the pond. Who did that, and why? ASI manufacturers who
wanted to sell more instruments? And the pilots over here, and elsewhere, just
sat back and let it happen! Well, you advocates of the kt, better start
memorizing the value of pi, the ratio of the diameter to the circumference of a
circle. Why? Cause I'm going to petition the FAA and all these value changers to
replace the measuring standard of our engine's rotation rate from
revolutions-per-minute to radians-per-second, a much more scientific and useful
value, used the world over in calculations! So there, you knots!
p.s. technically speaking, rpm means
revolutions-per-minute, so please don't
abbreviate it as rpms, which would mean
revolutions-per-minutes. I'm
watching!
|