Through measuring the airborne target location parameters such as azimuth angle, pitching angle and distance by the ground single station, this paper focused on the study of the principle and mathematical model of velocity measurement, simulation and error analysis. A method of velocity measurement for airborne target was put forward based on the data from the ground single station, which emphatically analyses the effect of distance, ranging accuracy, angle accuracy, flight altitude and invasion angle to the velocity measurement. The simulation results showed the velocity measurement error increased with increasing of the distance and flight altitude of target. In the same measurement condition of the same distance and flight altitude, the measurement error was the minimum at 0° and 90° of invasion angle, and the maximum error in about 30°~70° of invasion angle. After the field test verification, the velocity measurement error of an aircraft was 3%~16% at the distance of 2 km~22 km.