Feet Per Second to Meters Per Second (ft/s to m/s)

1 foot per second equals 0.3048 meters per second exactly.

1 foot per second = 0.3048 meters per second

How to convert feet per second to meters per second

To convert feet per second to meters per second, multiply the number of feet per second by 0.3048. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply meters per second by 3.280839895 (rounded).

meters per second = feet per second × 0.3048

Example: 10 feet per second = 3.048 meters per second.

About these units

Foot Per Second (ft/s)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

Exactly 0.3048 m/s. Used for velocity in US engineering, ballistics and fluid flow.

Compound units rarely have a recorded inventor, and the foot per second is a plain example: it is just a foot divided by a second. The foot underneath it began as a body-based length ranging historically from about 250 to 335 millimeters, with ancient Greek and Roman feet near 300 mm. Before the SI arrived in 1960, feet per second, miles per hour and knots were more common than meters per second, depending on region.

The 1959 international agreement fixed the foot at exactly 0.3048 meter, so one foot per second is exactly 0.3048 m/s, about 1.097 km/h or 0.6818 mph. Sound moves at about 1,125 ft/s in dry air at 20 °C, which is 343 m/s. Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1 reached about 361 m/s in 1947, near 1,184 ft/s. The unit remains common in American engineering and science, where lengths are still given in feet and inches.

1 foot per second = 0.3048 meters per second (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Foot per second; Wikipedia: Foot (unit); NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Meter Per Second (m/s)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI unit of speed. Walking pace is about 1.4 m/s; a sprinter reaches roughly 10 m/s.

Official standing arrived in 1960, when the CGPM established the SI and made the meter per second the unit for speed and velocity. Before that, feet per second, miles per hour and knots were more common, depending on region and trade. One proposal gave 1 m/s its own name, the benz, after Karl Benz, but it was rejected and never caught on, so the unit is still written as a plain ratio of meter to second.

The meter is now defined by the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second, and the second by the vibration of caesium atoms, so the meter per second rests on two physical standards. Exactly 3.6 km/h make 1 m/s, and it equals about 2.2369 mph or 1.9438 knots. For scale, sound travels at about 343 m/s in dry air at 20 °C, and Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1 reached about 361 m/s, Mach 1.06, in October 1947. Physics and engineering use the unit almost exclusively.

The meter per second is the reference unit for speed on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Metre per second; NIST: the meter and the SI redefinition; Wikipedia: Sound barrier

Related conversions

See all speed units.