In these kinds of measurements, the most practical instrument to use is the pitot tube. In industry, the flow velocities being measured are often those flowing in ducts and tubing where measurements by an anemometer would be difficult to obtain. Pitot tube static anemometer is on the right. Weather instruments at Mount Washington Observatory. Д«irgenair Flight 301 had a fatal pitot tube failure which investigators suspected was due to insects creating a nest inside the pitot tube the prime suspect is the black and yellow mud dauber wasp.ДЄeroperГє Flight 603 had a fatal pitot-static system failure due to the cleaning crew leaving the static port blocked with tape. In 2008 Air CaraГЇbes reported two incidents of pitot tube icing malfunctions on its A330s. The French air safety authority BEA said that pitot tube icing was a contributing factor in the crash of Air France Flight 447 into the Atlantic Ocean. Examples include Austral LГneas AГ©reas Flight 2553, Northwest Airlines Flight 6231, Birgenair Flight 301 and one of the two X-31s. Several commercial airline incidents and accidents have been traced to a failure of the pitot-static system. Errors in pitot-static system readings can be extremely dangerous as the information obtained from the pitot static system, such as airspeed, is potentially safety-critical. A pitot-static system generally consists of a pitot tube, a static port, and the pitot-static instruments. Aircraft and accidents ДЄ pitot-static system is a system of pressure-sensitive instruments that is most often used in aviation to determine an aircraft's airspeed, Mach number, altitude, and altitude trend. Stagnation pressure = static pressure + dynamic pressure The measured stagnation pressure cannot itself be used to determine the fluid flow velocity (airspeed in aviation).

This pressure is the stagnation pressure of the fluid, also known as the total pressure or (particularly in aviation) the pitot pressure. As this tube contains fluid, a pressure can be measured the moving fluid is brought to rest (stagnates) as there is no outlet to allow flow to continue.

The basic pitot tube consists of a tube pointing directly into the fluid flow.

Using a pitot tube to measure velocity