What is foot per second?

Foot per second is a unit of speed in imperial and US customary systems. It is used in ballistics, sports science, and engineering calculations that rely on US customary units.

Real-world uses

Feet per second is used in ballistics for bullet muzzle velocities (e.g., 2,800 fps for a rifle round), aerospace engineering for aircraft approach speeds, and fluid dynamics in American engineering contexts. Elevator speeds are sometimes specified in ft/s.

History

Feet per second has been used in English-language engineering since the 18th century, particularly in artillery and ballistics. It remains the standard velocity unit in American firearms and aerospace industries despite the broader shift toward metric units.

Common mistakes

Confusing feet per second with miles per hour. 1 ft/s ≈ 0.682 mph, so they are quite different. Also, using fps as an abbreviation for both "feet per second" and "frames per second" creates ambiguity in technical documents.

What is metre per minute?

Metre per minute is a unit of speed expressing the distance in metres covered in one minute. It is used in industrial machinery, conveyor belt speeds, and slow-motion technical processes.

Real-world uses

Metres per minute is used in manufacturing for conveyor belt speeds, CNC machine feed rates, and surface cutting speeds. Treadmill speeds at low settings may be displayed in m/min. It is also used for walking speed in pedestrian traffic studies.

History

Metres per minute became a practical unit in industrial settings where processes operate too slowly for m/s to give convenient numbers but too fast for m/h. It is particularly entrenched in machining and metalworking standards.

Common mistakes

Confusing metres per minute with metres per second—they differ by a factor of 60. An average walking speed of about 80 m/min equates to roughly 1.33 m/s or 4.8 km/h.

When is this conversion used?

Converting between foot per second and metre per minute is common when working across metric and imperial systems, such as international trade, travel between countries with different measurement standards, or following instructions from a different region.

Worked examples

1 foot per second = 18.288 metre per minute

1 metre per minute = 0.01666667 metre per second

How to convert foot per second to metre per minute

To convert foot per second to metre per minute, multiply the value by 18.288.

To convert metre per minute back to foot per second, multiply by 0.05468066.

Measurement standards

The SI unit of speed is metres per second (m/s), a derived unit requiring no independent definition. The knot is defined as exactly one nautical mile (1,852 metres) per hour and is sanctioned for maritime and aeronautical navigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Did you know?

The fastest human-made object is the Parker Solar Probe, which reached 635,266 km/h (about 176 km/s) in 2024 during a close pass of the Sun — fast enough to travel from New York to Tokyo in under a minute.

Quick reference: foot per second to metre per minute

foot per second	metre per minute
0.1	1.8288
0.5	9.144
1	18.288
2	36.576
5	91.44
10	182.88
25	457.2
50	914.4
100	1,828.8
250	4,572
500	9,144
1,000	18,288

Common values

	foot per second	metre per minute
Walking speed	4.59317585 foot per second	84 metre per minute
City speed limit	45.60367454 foot per second	834 metre per minute
Highway driving	102.69028871 foot per second	1,878 metre per minute
Commercial aircraft	820.20997375 foot per second	15,000 metre per minute
Speed of sound (sea level)	1,116.43700787 foot per second	20,417.4 metre per minute

Available Speed units

More foot per second conversions

Assumption: Mach uses an approximate sea-level reference (about 340.29 m/s).