Why Does Aviation Use Nautical Miles?

Apart from pilots and sea captains, most of us use either the Imperial or the metric system when calculating how far we need to get to where we are going. However, air navigation has adopted the ways of its marine counterpart, as it also covers distances great enough to cross several latitudinal lines- Not to mention, to save air traffic control a great deal of potential confusion when communicating with international pilots...

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[andrasszabo]

As a low time pilot i think using 3 different measurement is “luxury” and leaves a lot of space for error.
The Russians on the other hand use metric system. They count fuel in liters or kilos, altitude and visibility in meters, speed in km/hour and distance in kilometers and torque in Nm (Newton meters).
You have to be very hypoxic to make an error in the calculations..
We should also be also using metric system in aviation a long time already...

[MaxVliet]

Knots is not the only maritime expression that has made it into the skies. An aircraft fuselage is also known as a hull. The Ship's Library is the folder that contains, among other things, all the paperwork that documents the aircraft is airworthy and legal to fly. Port and Starbord, as well as fore and aft, inboard and outboard, rudder, tiller, bulkhead, cockpit, galley, cabin, captain, first officer, purser, and crew are some from the top of my head. The navigation lights follow the same pattern on aircraft as on ships, with red to port, green to starboard, and white to the rear.

[stradivarioushardhiantz]

1nm = 1.852km
1mile = 1.609km
1lb = 0.454kg
1 kg jet fuel = 1.27L
1 US Gal = 3.785L
1 lb thrust = 4.45 Newtons
1 Mach aircraft speed = 1062km/hr
1 inch = 2.54cm
1 ft = 30.49cm
1 Cu Ft = 28.317L
1 cubic metre= 1000 litres 
≈ 35.3 cubic feet
≈ 1.31 cubic yards
≈ 6.29 oil barrels
≈ 220 imperial gallons
≈ 264 US fluid gallons

[osasunaitor]

And what about feet for altitude?
Aviation is a strange mix of measuring systems, I think it's about time it switches to something more consistent

[dandavidson]

Go metric. It might be chaos for a while, but will be much better in the long run.

[PavlosPapageorgiou]

Meters and seconds. But good luck changing that safely.

[bgsarianto]

Henlo, you may want to review the subtitle that you inserted.. thank you for the video

[jblyon]

Start measuring aircraft separation by car lengths, so us Americans can know whether they're keeping safe following distances

[warrengibson]

They should announce a date two or three years in the future when the junk units will be stopped cold in favor of SI. Digital instruments could be retrofitted to switch over automatically. Stickers could be applied to old analog gauges.

[jamescaley]

Look forward to pilots using furlongs, rods, bushels and perches.

[spencerjoplin]

Planck lengths. 1E38 is approximately 1 mile.

[Despotarr]

It's quite funny that they didn't want to change the unit because of confusion. Today we have nautical miles for flight distance, meters for some shorter distances and foot for the flight altitude. It's an incredible mixture which is the incarnation of confusion in theory. 😂

[aldredd]

I'm glad we were able to clear that up...

[anarchistatheist]

3 nautical miles is equivalent to 3.45 miles or 5.55 kilometers. So for example most adults or the average speed to walk is 3 knots, 3.45 miles per hour or 5.55 kilometers per hour.

[mann]

That is a new fact thank you for giving me a briefing about this topic

[RivieraStar]

Very good, back in time in Russia and countries affiliated, they used meters for altitude and km/hr for speed, we are using feet and NM as you just explained. In Mexico they are using meter/second to indicate the strength of the wind on some airports just like in Russia, rest of the world uses knot, one knot is one nautical mile per hour. And since I haven’t flown all over the world yet I am pretty sure there are some more particularities around.

[pablograncanaria]

Metric system for distance, altitude, weight and volume, please!

[jemand]

I wonder what's changed first, the european summer/winter time or the incredible amount of units used in aviation.
They could use corona for that. No aircraft in the sky for 20 minutes while everything is changed, just like when Sweden changed from left hand to right hand driving and everyone had to stop for 20 minutes because of this. It worked...

[DomCe]

Metric everything would be perfect, because the metric system itself is a closed system in which you can change units very easily.

[swenschlobach]

Metrical units should be used, like this is the case in almost all other areas.