Aircraft Speed

There is a certain circle of people who are fond of aviation. But some are just interested in planes in principle. Another for someone more interest is precisely the speed of the aircraft. But before you determine this value, you need to know that this speed is divided into true, instrument and track.

When each of the types of velocities is considered separately, it is customary to call the instrument (or indicator, or IAS) "speed along the wide arrow". In the past, pilots used scarves during the flight. With their help, the speed was determined, based on how much this scarf developed during the flight in the stream of air that flowed around the open cabin.

Undoubtedly, no such digital device could issue such a digital value, but it was not necessary then. Much more important was to determine the power of the air flow and then, whether it will be possible to rely on it, while eliminating the risk of falling into a tailspin.

This device was later called the instrument speed of the aircraft or high-speed head. At the present time, this is determined by means of a tube taken out of the plane. The airflow that enters it, deflects the arrow of the device itself, thus showing the instrument speed.

In addition, it is worth considering that when climbing to a height, the density of air gradually decreases , and in the near space this figure is zero. Therefore, it is important to know that, while maintaining a certain instrumental (constant!) Speed during climb, at certain heights the speed of the aircraft can almost double.

At the same time, the instrument's parameters will remain unchanged, because there are much fewer molecules at the height, which means that there are fewer of them here compared to how much they are directly above the ground. From this it turns out that there are two speeds of the aircraft - the instrument and the true.

Unlike the instrument, the true (also called "speed through the narrow arrow") is used not for piloting, but mainly for navigation. This is due to the fact that when there is no wind, there are no problems, and if there is one, the speed of the aircraft will change in one way or another (either decrease or increase).

The track speed was previously calculated by dividing the distance that the aircraft passed by the time. But the emergence of new inertial Doppler systems and GPS allowed us to determine this value by other methods, each of which is unique.

Just before take-off, each aircraft has zero speed. But the speed of the aircraft at take-off for each type of this transport is different. And it depends on certain conditions: take-off mass, air temperature, aerodrome height above sea level and some others.

Thus, heavy civilian aircraft have an indicator ranging from 200 to 250 km / h, medium - from 150 to 180, and combat - from 250 to 300 km / h. But from year to year on new types of aircraft these speeds are reduced due to the fact that the design of various elements of this transport is constantly improving (engine power, mechanization of the wing).

The speed record was set in 2007. This value was according to the latest data of 300 km / h. And the maximum speed of the aircraft can reach today more than 850 km / h. At the same time take-off speed should be not less than 150 km / hour.

Passenger aircraft to take off, should gain a speed of about 300 km / h. It follows that the average speed for air transport should be approximately 200 km / h.

Today there is also such an aircraft, the name of which is supersonic. Its distinctive feature is that the speed of this transport in the air exceeds the speed of sound.