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How Planes Fly

How Planes Fly. The basic principles of how aircraft works. A brief physics lesson:. Forces come in pairs For every action (force), there is an equal and opposite reaction (force) An airplane consists of four forces A) Lift B) Thrust C) Weight D) Drag.

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How Planes Fly

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  1. How Planes Fly The basic principles of how aircraft works

  2. A brief physics lesson: Forces come in pairs For every action (force), there is an equal and opposite reaction (force) An airplane consists of four forces A) Lift B) Thrust C) Weight D) Drag

  3. How can 435 tons be lifted above the ground just by air? “Lift can exist only in the presence of a moving fluid.” Air is a fluid consisting of millions of molecules. Because of this, when it hits the underside of the plane, the molecules bounce off. When things bounce off of each other, they give some of their energy to what they just hit. As a result of this collision, the wing is “pushed” upwards and you have what is called “lift”.

  4. This is how helicopters work. Helicopters are a lot like airplanes with the “wings” being pushed up by the air. The difference is that these “wings” are rotated around a certain shaft or axis. This causes the push on the air (and equivalently the body) to be in a circular motion as well as an upward motion. Because of this circular motion about an axis, the helicopter’s body would spin opposite of its main rotor. This calls for a tail rotor to be placed on the tail of the helicopter to keep it from spinning around.

  5. The helicopter compared to other modes of transportation. Unlike most modes of transportation, the helicopter is the only one that has 3-D ways of moving itself. This requires the pilot of a helicopter to undergo extensive preparation. The difference between safety of a helicopter and a plane is how far you are from the ground. If you are in a plane and you loose power, you want to be high up so you can glide in. If you are in a helicopter when the power goes out, you want to be close to the ground our else you will be like a ball in free fall.

  6. The Benefits of Flying When flying on an aircraft, know that the pilots and crew of such aircraft have to go through months of training and practice to get their license. The aircraft has to be checked by the Federal Aviation Administration. The crew who works on the plane must hold a license as well, and there is also the air traffic controller that makes sure no planes have a mid-air crash. This last point can be seen in the recent Hudson Bay accident, in which the pilot made sure everyone was off the plane by checking the cabin twice before leaving the plane. Airplanes are considered the safest mode of transportation because research shows that “if you were born on an airplane and stayed in the air all your life, you would be in your 80’s before you had an accident, and it would not necessarily be a fatal accident.”

  7. Sources • Brabon, Terry W. Personal interview. 17 Feb. 2009. • http://science.howstuffworks.com/airplane2.htm • Tran, Tu-Uyen. "When birds and planes collide." Grand Forks Herald 9 Feb. 2009. EBSCOhost. Dordt College. 17 Feb. 2009 <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=7&sid=2f77ff59-3555-413e-bc9e-c3f80943e738%40sessionmgr107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=nfh&AN=2W62W62880352123>.

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