AIRCRAFT MAIN FEATURES PRESENTED BY BRENDAH NAMBALIRWA

1. AIRCRAFT MAIN FEATURES PRESENTED BY BRENDAH NAMBALIRWA

2. AIRCRAFT MAIN FEATURES

3. An aircraft has the following main features • Fuselage • Wings • Tail plane • The wheel structures. • Engines (propulsion units)

4. AIRCRAFT MAIN FEATURES

5. Fuselage • This is the main body of the aircraft, without the wings, wheels or engines. The fuselage is generally made of very thin metal and this is done to reduce on the weight of the aircraft.

6. Fuselage • The fuselage shape is stream lined, mainly because the manufactures are trying to reduce drag.

7. fuselage • The fuselage of most passenger aircrafts is divided into the main deck and the lower deck. The main deck has the passenger cabin and the cockpit while the lower deck has the holds, where passenger baggage is loaded.

8. Wings • The wings provide the necessary force of lift to the aircraft. Let us see how the wings generate lift. Consider a typical cross section of the wing. This called an aerofoil. The straight line joining the leading (front) edge to the trailing (rear) edge of the wing is a chord.

9. Wings

10. wings • Air stream hitting the aero foil at the leading edge will split and partly flow above the wings and partly below the wings. Due to the curved shape above the wings (camber) the sweep of the airflow increases and reduces the pressure above the wings

11. wings • The pressure below the wings is much higher and the air from high pressure area moves to low pressure areas to equalise the pressure. This air moving from below the wings to above the wings applies an upward force on the wings which we refer to as lift.

12. wings AIR FLOW

13. wings • The wings have a number of movable parts, hinged to the them which facilitate their function. They are;

14. Wings Ailerons • These are found at the trailing edge of the wing. They facilitate the turning of the aircraft from left to right.

15. Wings Slats • Found at the leading edge of the wings, the slats open to facilitate the movement of air from the bottom to the top of the wing to increase the speed of air flow at the top of the wing. This action helps the wings to increase lift.

16. Wings Flaps • These are found at the trailing edge of the wing. The flaps work together with the slats to increase lift. The flaps, when stretched out increase the surface area of the wings, consequently increasing the area for air flow which in turn increases lift.

17. Wings

18. Tail planes. • This element is found at the back of the aircraft. It consists of two parts; the vertical part which is also referred to as the fin and the horizontal part which is also referred to as the stabilizer. The stabilizer and the fin both have movable parts which enable movement of the aircraft nose.

19. Tail plane Elevator • The elevator is a movable part attached to the stabilizer which when moved up enables the aircraft nose to move down and vice versa. This movement is referred to as pitching.

20. Tail plane Rudder • The rudder is another movable part, attached to the fin that, when side moved to the left will cause the aircraft nose to move to the right and vice versa. This movement is referred to as yawing.

21. The wheel structures/ under carriage. • An aircraft touches down on the runway on its under carriage. At the time of the impact an enormous force is exerted which sends shock waves through out the aircraft structure.

22. The wheel structures/ under carriage. • The main function of the wheels/under carriage is to cushion and absorb the shock waves resulting from the impact. • The wheels are retracted at take-off to minimise drag.

23. The Engines. • The engines are also referred to as the propulsion units because they propel the aircraft forward. They do this by pushing air backward with the objective of causing a thrust in the forward direction.