Is this further than I think?

[Guest]

Not quite boating but..

Just been watching a TV programme about the Commanche Helicopter. Apparantly it has a range of 2,000 nautical kilometres. That's a long way isn't it? but how far is it really?

Now I know what a statute mile is. I know what a nautical mile is and I know what a kilometre is.

But what's a nautical kilometre?

Have I missed something? Or is there a new SI unit on the way?

 

[ToMo]

Nah it's media speak for we haven't got a b....dy clue

 

[Guest]

You have to take anything the media say with a pinch of salt. I havn't heard of a nautical Kilometer either. They try to sound as if they know what they are talking about after reading a book for ten minuites. They mis-quote Engineering terms all the time. i.e. Force measured in kg.
If that quoted range is correct it is exceptional. I just looked in the Observers Book of Aircraft, the best Helicopters in there can only just manage 500miles (800km).

 

[byron]

The Guy that wrote the article has a wristwatch that meaures time in decimal. 100 secs to a minute, 100 minutes to an hour, 100 hours to a day, 100 hours, to a week, 100 weeks to a month, 100 months to a year.
This may sound daft but it isn't the boating season is extended because of this. It's just normal Brussels Eurorules

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[Guest]

Re: distances explained

If you have a fast boat or plane, the speed is in knots. Nautical miles are always longer and a bit more boring than ordinary miles, to allow for the waves at sea, or the going up and down in the air.

If a boat is slow and/or American, they quote the speed/range mph/miles. Statute miles are straight and legally laid down by law. Imperial miles are nearly the same, but take a bit longer to allow for killing the locals along the way, and these miles were used by the English in India, for example.

If a vehicle is really slow, they quote the speed in kilometres or kph. The French invented kilometres partly as revenge for us having GMT. These days, kilometres are used successfully all over France to deter Brits from driving to the south, because its sounds a very long way indeed. As a result, most Brits never get beyond the Dordogne, which is in fact the French for for "Dawdling"and almost all of them have a stopover in Reims. Rheims (spelled Reims in French) doesn't mean anything at all, but was so named because neither Brits nor Germans can pronounce it properly, like Troyes which is further down.

Finally, if a vehicle is utter rubbish AND the reporter or manufacturers are daft, it's in nautical kilometres. On a boat, you must take off the scale at the side of the map, add on a few degrees depending on whether you are upstairs or downstairs, and then collar the least interested crewmember (usually a child) and muck about with pointy compasses for at least ten minutes. Then, start the engines and say "I don't fancy a long trip, shall we just go to that nice place again for lunch?"

 

[Dave_Seager]

My curiosity got the better of me, so I looked for the specifications. According to the "Alexis de Tocqueville Institution" (?), the range of the Comanche is 1,260 nautical miles (see http://www.adti.net/html_files/defair/QBBATTLE.html). This is roughly 2,000 kilometres, nautical or otherwise. It's quite impressive, really.

Dave Seager
Weybridge UK