A sports-tracking system reports a sprinter's top speed as 36.1 ft/s. What is that in m/s?

36.1 × 0.3048 = 11.0 m/s. That's a competitive but not world-class sprint — Bolt's record peak was 12.4 m/s. Good for ranking against published athletic benchmarks.

My ballistics app shows a bullet at 2700 ft/s. What is the m/s equivalent?

2700 × 0.3048 = 822.96 m/s. The speed of sound at sea level is 343 m/s, so this round is traveling at roughly Mach 2.4 — solidly supersonic.

A weather report lists wind gusts at 88 ft/s during a storm. How fast is that in m/s?

88 × 0.3048 = 26.82 m/s. The Beaufort scale classifies winds above 24.5 m/s as storm force (Beaufort 10). At 26.8 m/s you're at the lower edge of violent storm conditions.

Is there an easy mental shortcut for ft/s to m/s?

Divide by 3.281 or, more practically, multiply by 0.3 and add 1.6%. Example: 50 ft/s × 0.3 = 15 m/s (exact: 15.24 m/s). For the reverse, see [mph to km/h](/speed/mph-to-kmh/) and adjust from there.

Foot per Second to Meter per Second Converter

Enter a value to instantly convert between speed units.

From

Precision4 dp

1 Foot per Second = 0.3048 Meter per Second

Key Formulas

Kilometer per Hour → Mile per Hour

mph = km/h × 0.621371

Mile per Hour → Kilometer per Hour

km/h = mph × 1.60934

Knot → Mile per Hour

mph = kn × 1.15078

Mile per Hour → Knot

kn = mph × 0.868976

Formula

m/s = ft/s × 0.3048

Feet per second is common in American engineering, sports timing, and firearms specifications, while meters per second is the SI standard used in physics, meteorology, and international sports science. Converting between them comes up constantly when comparing US-sourced data against scientific literature or when checking athletic speeds against world-record benchmarks given in m/s.

Source: NIST SP 811, Table B.8

Frequently Asked Questions

Real-World Examples

The exact defined conversion — one foot per second is exactly 0.3048 m/s, since the foot is defined as 0.3048 meters.

1 ft/s = 0.3048 m/s

Usain Bolt's peak sprint speed at his 100 m world record — 12.4 m/s is the benchmark cited in sports science literature.

40.7 ft/s = 12.4 m/s

A fast bicycle descent or a slow river in flood — 30 m/s is also close to the speed of a strong hurricane-force wind.

100 ft/s = 30.48 m/s

Typical muzzle velocity of a high-powered rifle — 914 m/s is nearly three times the speed of sound (343 m/s at 20°C).

3000 ft/s = 914.4 m/s

kmh to mph mph to kmh knots to mph mph to knots ms to kmh kmh to ms

Foot per Second to Meter per Second Converter

Key Formulas

Formula

Frequently Asked Questions

Real-World Examples

Related Converters