Ground speed: speed of the aircraft ACROSS THE GROUND! :-)
Air speed: speed of the aircraft through the air.
Its normal for them to be different.
In the right conditions (ie small aircraft with TRUCKLOADS of headwind) you could even have a goddamn backwards ground speed and a normal air speed.
Air speed is the most important. It effectively measures how much air goes across the wings - important because if you don't have enough you'll fall out of the sky. If you have too much, you'll have other problems - stability, tear the aircraft apart, etc.
Ground speed is mostly not that important. Mostly. There are some aircraft that don't even have a groundspeed indicator. ALL aircraft have an airspeed indicator.
Wind vector. Not speed. The direction affects the ground speed.
I'm not sure what you mean on point two I didn't leave that out. I said SOME planes don't have this indicator. Which is true. Not all planes have groundspeed OR GPS for that matter. And you'd think the way I said it implies that most planes DO have it. I was just illustrating it's importance compared to air speed which is king.
Yes any modern plane would have it. But any modern plane isn't "all planes" or even "all functioning planes with no missing parts".
Ground speed: speed of the aircraft ACROSS THE GROUND! :-)
Air speed: speed of the aircraft through the air.
Its normal for them to be different.
In the right conditions (ie small aircraft with TRUCKLOADS of headwind) you could even have a goddamn backwards ground speed and a normal air speed.
Air speed is the most important. It effectively measures how much air goes across the wings - important because if you don't have enough you'll fall out of the sky. If you have too much, you'll have other problems - stability, tear the aircraft apart, etc.
Ground speed is mostly not that important. Mostly. There are some aircraft that don't even have a groundspeed indicator. ALL aircraft have an airspeed indicator.
I think you left something out.
Wind vector. Not speed. The direction affects the ground speed.
I'm not sure what you mean on point two I didn't leave that out. I said SOME planes don't have this indicator. Which is true. Not all planes have groundspeed OR GPS for that matter. And you'd think the way I said it implies that most planes DO have it. I was just illustrating it's importance compared to air speed which is king.
Yes any modern plane would have it. But any modern plane isn't "all planes" or even "all functioning planes with no missing parts".
Not a pilot I just really like planes.
Go get that PP license, you could be flying all over the US after all this is over ...