US B-52 bomber plunged into ground at more than 1,500m per minute
www.abc.net.au
A B-52 bomber aircraft that crashed at a US Air Force base in California, killing eight people aboard, made a sharp right and then nearly completed a 180-degree turn before plunging to the ground.
    • HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca
      20·
      9 days ago

      Uh is it not 60? Am I having a stroke?

      60 km/h = 60 kilometers in 60 minutes = 1 kilometer in 1 minute

      And assuming the fundamentals of mathematics haven’t actually changed, that is ungodly slow for pretty much any modern jet aircraft…

      Edit: WHY DOES THE HEADLINE SAY THAT

      • lividweasel@lemmy.world
        10·
        9 days ago

        From the article:

        The data, which comes from a system called multilateration, does not show precise altitude and speed information, but it does show the plane fell to earth at a rate of descent of 1,541 metres per minute

        92.46 km/h

        But still, that’s indeed very slow for an aircraft like that. I’m sure they just worded it that way because it sounds faster.

        • cynar@lemmy.world
          5·
          8 days ago

          90kph is very slow for a flight speed, but stupidly fast for a decent speed. That is about half the speed of a skydiver free falling. That, added on to the airspeed, would be a very bad situation for any plane.

  • vithigar@lemmy.ca
    6·
    8 days ago

    Article is written confusingly as the author does not seem to understand that the speed quoted, ~1500m/min, is the descent rate and does not include airspeed.

    The plane’s actual impact velocity was certainly much higher than that.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      8 days ago

      If we translate the bizarre unit of 1500 meters/minute out of anti-intellectual “I’m too stupid to divide by anything other than 10” units and into the figures the ship’s instruments are calibrated in.

      1500m/min works out to 4921 ft/min, which is what your typical VSI is calibrated in. For context, that’s about where a 737 pilot would stop calling it a “descent” and start calling it a “dive.” A 5,000 foot a minute descent is pretty quick, that’s loss of cabin pressure descent territory. A more typical descent-from-cruise will be done at 3000 ft/min or so, which would take you from cruising at 30,000 feet to sea level in 10 minutes.

      1500m/min works out to about 48 knots or so, that’s what your typical ASI is calibrated in. I would be very surprised if you could get a B-52 moving that slow off the ground. That just happens to be the VSO speed of a post-1980 Cessna 172. You can’t get a Skyhawk going that slow, let alone a Stratofortress.

      So yeah, the BUFF hit the dirt going faster than that.

  • TheGoldenV@lemmy.world
    6·
    9 days ago

    I miss the good ol days when we used to use proper Rods and wear an onion on our belt, which was the style at the time.