Flight Time Calculator (Time-Speed-Distance)
The E6B's bread and butter: solve time from distance and ground speed — with the answer in decimal hours, minutes, and hh:mm for the navlog.
Always divide by ground speed, never airspeed — the wind has a vote. For mental math, knots ÷ 60 gives nm per minute: 110 kt covers 264 nm in 264/1.83 ≈ 144 minutes.
Formula
⚠️ For flight planning and education only — verify with official sources, your POH/AFM and certified equipment. Not for primary navigation.
The E6B's bread and butter: solve time from distance and ground speed — with the answer in decimal hours, minutes, and hh:mm for the navlog.
About Flight Time Calculator (Time-Speed-Distance)
Every navlog row, fuel plan and ETA promise begins with the same division: distance over ground speed. This calculator does aviation's most-used arithmetic with the three outputs pilots actually need — hh:mm for the passenger question, raw minutes for the navlog, and decimal hours for the logbook and billing — and keeps the units honest in knots and nautical miles with a metric toggle.
How to use Flight Time Calculator (Time-Speed-Distance)
- 1Enter — sensible defaults are pre-filled so you see a worked result immediately.
- 2Read the live results: .
- 3Check the "With your numbers" line to see the formula time = distance ÷ ground speed substituted step by step.
- 4Adjust inputs (or flip the unit toggle) until the scenario matches yours, then copy or share the result.
Why use Flight Time Calculator (Time-Speed-Distance)?
- ✓Instant, free and private — every calculation runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded
- ✓Built on the published formula time = distance ÷ ground speed with sources cited on the page
- ✓Always divide by ground speed, never airspeed — the wind has a vote. For mental math, knots ÷ 60 gives nm per minute: 110 kt covers 264 nm in 264/1.83 ≈ 144 minutes.
- ✓Switch units, tweak any input and watch every result update live
Frequently asked questions
Why ground speed and not true airspeed?+
Time is distance over the ground divided by speed over the ground. TAS describes motion through the air mass; the wind then moves the air mass itself. A 110-kt TAS aircraft in a 20-kt headwind covers ground at 90 kt and takes 22% longer than the airspeed suggests — the single most common student planning error.
How do I estimate leg time mentally?+
Convert knots to nautical miles per minute by dividing by 60: 120 kt = 2 nm/min, 90 kt = 1.5. Then divide the leg by your pace: 36 nm at 2 nm/min is 18 minutes. With two anchors memorized (your usual cruise and climb ground speeds), most legs become single-digit arithmetic.
Why does my logbook want decimal hours?+
Convention and arithmetic: 1.7 h sums more easily across pages than 1:42, and regulations (currency, ratings minima) are written in decimal. The conversion is minutes ÷ 60 rounded to a tenth — 42 minutes is 0.7. This tool prints it directly so the post-flight entry is a copy, not a calculation.
Should I plan with one ground speed for the whole flight?+
For short legs, a single cruise GS with a couple of minutes added for climb works. Beyond ~50 nm, split it: climb segment at climb GS (often 60–70% of cruise), then cruise from top-of-climb. Our time-fuel-distance-to-climb and cruise planner tools generate those segment numbers; this calculator then prices each leg.
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