Talk:Pitot tube

External links from Pitot, which now redirects here:

• Pitot Tube -- This one says it all in one diagram.

• eFunda: Theory of Pitot Static Tubes -- This is more exhaustive.

This article needs the pronunciation of Pitot adding.

Airspeed?

I am fairly certain that the general standard for measuring airspeed is knots, and not miles per hour Brophmeister (talk) 06:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, the unit is knots (= nautical miles per hour). It seems that in countries using kilometers on land, people tend to drop the word "nautical".

Sv1xv (talk) 07:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

---

Current description is not exactly for a pitot tube, but strictly for a pitot static tube, isn't it? Some aircraft have separated (pure)pitot tubes + static ports. - Marsian / talk 01:21:18, 2005-09-02 (UTC)

It had both ports when Pitot invented it in 1732. One port or two, it is a Pitot tube either way. Meggar 05:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

parallel vs Perpendicular

I believe these terms are reversed in the description. WRT the diagram the air is being forced down the ceter tube while the outer tube is only exposed indrectly through the holes just as the description states. However wouldn't this make the center tube parallel and the outter perpendicular?

The face of the openings vs. airflow is what determines whether they are parallel or perpendicular I believe - so the centre tube's opening is perpendicular to the direction of airflow, and the outer tube's opening is parallel to the airflow. Hope that's clear? ZoFreX 23:02, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I think ZoFreX is right, however the context is somewhat ambiguous. I'm intending to give this article a serious overhaul when I get the time. Chrisd87 17:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

rewrite

I've done a fairly major rewrite to this page, in an attempt to tidy it up and make it more accurate. I hope I've succeeded - this is the first time I've made such a large-scale edit to a wikipedia article. I'm intending to continue in due course and talk more about errors due to attitude and the like, and in time maybe translate the German article and incorporate that. Chrisd87 21:36, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Further to this, the image I have added in place of the previous one is translated from the German Wikipedia article. Work is currently underway to translate the other diagrams from that page for inclusion here. Chrisd87 21:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Pitot vs. pitot

Although the Pitot/pitot tube is named after its inventor, Henri Pitot, predominant common usage is for "pitot tube" to be written in lower case (except at the start of a sentence, of course). This article capitalizes it throughout and recently an editor has gone through the Pitot-static system article to capitalized it throughout there as well. Isn't it Wikipedia policy to use the most common expression? Askari Mark (Talk) 18:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

My sources all show the worid pitot tube being in lower case. Including source in FAA documentation. Is that good enough to assume common use? I have other sources I can consult as well but I feel that they will all show lower case usage. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 20:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I was just reading an Associated Press article on the Air France 447 disaster and noticed that the author made a good summary of the workings of a pitot tube that appears to have drawn on this article as reference. Why do I think this? Because the author capitalized “Pitot” which is rarely found in most sources. Accordingly, I’m decapitalizing the term here. Since no contrary comment has appeared here in two and a half years, I’m assuming this is consensus. If not, please address the issue here before reverting. Askari Mark (Talk) 20:24, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

External Sources

I am working on a semi re-write/expansion of this article, as well as work on the article on Henri Pitot. I am using this as kind of a staging area for sources I find related to this/these topics. If you find any good reliable ones, feel free to add them! Thanks -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 20:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC) a paper on pitot tubes

Marine use

Boats use pitot tubes to measure water speed, but this page makes no mention of that. -- Mikeblas (talk) 02:23, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Specific Use

Pitot tubes on airplanes are a specific use and should not take over the body of the article. Aircraft should not be mentioned at all in the definition of pitot tube. The use of pitot tubes in aviation can be described in a number of other places. Perhaps in a seperate stub or even as another section in the pitot tube article called something like "common uses" or "in industry".

Understand that saying "A Pitot (pronounced /ˈpiːtoʊ/) tube is a pressure measurement instrument used to measure fluid flow velocity, and more specifically, used to determine the airspeed of an aircraft.", is a lot like saying "A mirror reflects images, and more specifically, used to determine what is behind your car."

When I came across this article I was expecting to see information more like what is contained on the Dwyer website: http://www.dwyer-inst.com/HTDOCS/airvelocity/AirVelocityIntroduction.cfm

Forgive me for not being more constructive; I am just learning to wiki.Steveandaugie (talk) 15:48, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Air France 447

I have commented out the paragraph on the Air France Flight 447 incident from the end of the lede. First of all, it's speculative as a possible cause. Secondly, it's far too much detail for an article on the pitot tube; if it should be retained (should it become found to be a probable cause), then it probably should just be added to .

Air France 447 mention; it's too specific to that incident and only speculation at this time as to being the incident's cause. If proven, this needs to be simply added to the list in the line above that mentions two cases. If consensus agrees, I’d recommend deleting it altogether. Askari Mark (Talk) 20:39, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the removal of the passage on AF 447. Much too speculative at this time. May be appropriate to add a mention later, if there is ever any proof that pitot tube icing was a contributing factor to the loss of AF 447. I see that some AF pilots are now refusing to fly Airbus 330's until the tubes are replaced, but that belongs in an article on the AF 447 crash, not here. Pechmerle (talk) 21:43, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

New information from the AF 447 investigation is pointing to failure due to pitot tubes. see: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,679980,00.html . Therefore, I suggest attributing AF 447 crash to Pitot tube failure. --Arorasal (talk) 01:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Stagnation vs Total Pressure

The author uses stagnation pressure and total pressure interchangably. This is incorrect and misleading. The author should explain that the stagnation pressure is equal to the total pressure only when the velocity of the fluid equals zero and therefore they are not one in the same. Also, Bernoulli's Equation states the total pressure, not the stagnation pressure, is equal to the dynamic plus the static pressure. See Crowe C, Elger D, and Roberson HJ. Engineering Fluid Mechanics. 7th Ed. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-38482-8. 142.176.6.109 (talk) 19:23, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I heartily agree with you! Unfortunately, Wikipedia has a comprehensive article on Stagnation pressure but no such article on Total pressure. There are articles where the two concepts are treated as synonymous – for example, see the second sentence HERE. I can recall some occasions where I wrote about total pressure but someone came along later and converted it to stagnation pressure so they could make it into a Wikilink to Stagnation pressure. I thought I was the only one here who saw a significant difference between the two, so I am glad to see there is at least one other! Dolphin (t) 04:15, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Assumptions about responsibility for Flight 447 crash

I guess there should be some correctional work done on this topic.

Please consult the following article for the idea about the reason for corrections (I don't know if it can be used as a valid source): http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877-2

Regards! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmilojevic (talk • contribs) 14:23, 9 December 2011 (UTC)