Question about aircraft speed.?

Sharri Scalley: There is a difference between indicated airspeed and true airspeed. Indicated airspeed is a measurement of the dynamic air pressure caused by forward movement of the plane through the air. The indicated airspeed is the speed the plane would have to travel through the air at sea level and standard barometric pressure and standard temperature to generate that dynamic pressure. Since the air at altitude is thinner the plane is actually traveling much faster to create the same amount of dynamic pressure....Show more

Wilfred Santacruce: KIAS/MIAS/etc=knots indicated airspeed/miles indicated airspeed/etcthe k stands for knots, the ias is Indicated AirSpeeddont know why the flight sim aircraft is listed that way

Jannette Kotz: The airspeed indicator is actually a pressure gauge that reads the ram air pressure of the airstream. The higher the airplane flies, the less dense the air is, so the less ram air pressure is developed for a known ! speed thru the air, resulting in a lower INDICATED airspeed than the actual, or TRUE airspeed of the airplane.

Branden Round: KIAS is indicated airspeed in knots. Aircraft use a pitot system to measure airspeed. It compares the ram air pressure with static pressure. Air is less dense the higher you go, so the plane has to travel faster to get the same pressure in the pitot tube. In other words, while the airspeed may appear to decrease with altitude, it is possible that the plane's ground speed is staying the same or increasing.Groundspeed is what affects you, the passenger, directly. After the speed at which your pilot flies the aircraft, winds at altitude have the biggest say on your groundspeed, which is the actual velocity the aircraft is traveling over ground. So the faster this is, the faster you will get to your destination. Because of the aforementioned air density difference at altitude, this speed is generally higher than IAS. The only time IAS and grounds! peed are identical is when the aircraft is at sea level, flyin! g in International Standard Atmosphere conditions (15°C, 1013 hPa, 0% humidity) and no wind.The reason why the pilots use indicated airspeed is because that is what matters to keep the plane in the air. Indicated airspeed is the actual speed of of the wings moving through the air at any time, any altitude. Wings have a tendency to stall, or stop generating enough lift, when the air moving past them is too slow, so the pilots have a particular interest to keep an eye on the IAS indicator....Show more