Elliptic Orbit - Flight Path Angle

Flight Path Angle

The flight path angle is the angle between the orbiting body's velocity vector (= the vector tangent to the instantaneous orbit) and the local horizontal. Under standard assumptions the flight path angle satisfies the equation:

where:

  • is the specific relative angular momentum of the orbit,
  • is orbital speed of orbiting body,
  • is radial distance of orbiting body from central body,
  • is the flight path angle

Read more about this topic:  Elliptic Orbit

Famous quotes containing the words flight, path and/or angle:

    AIDS was ... an illness in stages, a very long flight of steps that led assuredly to death, but whose every step represented a unique apprenticeship. It was a disease that gave death time to live and its victims time to die, time to discover time, and in the end to discover life.
    Hervé Guibert (1955–1991)

    After decades of unappreciated drudgery, American women just don’t do housework any more—that is, beyond the minimum that is required in order to clear a path from the bedroom to the front door so they can get off to work in the mourning.
    Barbara Ehrenreich (20th century)

    So much symmetry!
    Like the pale angle of time
    And eternity.
    The great shape labored and fell.
    N. Scott Momaday (b. 1934)