How 18th Century Technology Could Down an Airliner | Autopia | Wired.com
How 18th Century Technology Could Down an Airliner | Autopia | Wired.com: “The air speed indicators on the doomed plane included a Pitot tube, named for Henri Pitot, the French engineer who in 1732 created an instrument that could measure the velocity of a fluid. Grossly oversimplified, airspeed is determined by measuring the difference between ram air pressure coming into the Pitot tube and static air pressure at altitude. If anything blocks a Pitot tube or static port, the measurement will be inaccurate and jeopardize the safety of the flight. “
