COTS Career Question - Why use Statute Miles?

[TreeTops]

Why on the Career card is the distance listed as sm (statute miles)?
In the manual pg 74 range is listed as sm and km. (statute miles and kilometers)
Climb Data table pg 137 is listed as nm (nautical miles)
1 nm = 1.15 sm

I thought all aviation navigation was worked in nautical miles/

[scottb613]

Hi...

Not exactly sure - but from what I've observed - it seems like older planes 50's /60's have speed in MPH (statute miles) vs newer planes all seem to use Knots (nautical miles) on their air speed indicators...

I recall from my Navy days in navigation - nautical miles have pretty slick little rule of thumb - the 3 minute rule - speed in knots x 100 = distance traveled in 3 minutes (yards). Probably not much use in aviation... Yards are what we used for targeting our weapons...

Regards,
Scott


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[CAPFlyer]

Because until 1969, the FAA specified that all civil aircraft distances be measured in statute miles and speeds in miles per hour. Afterward, partly because of the coming primacy of jets and the more international nature of air travel. This was in conjunction with the ICAO also standardizing nautical measurements as standard due to ongoing political issues with the use of standard/imperial versus metric in various countries and the desire to standardize.