• Question: How do planes fly?

    Asked by I Love Brownies to Gosha on 15 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Gosha Barzowska

      Gosha Barzowska answered on 15 Mar 2015:

      Hello again I Love Brownies,
      Hope you had a good weekend! I spent mine doing a coursework for one of my Uni modules – Aerodynamics, which requires me to design wings for a UAV. In order to answer your question I will tell you what I learnt over the weekend 🙂 There are four forces acting on the aircraft: Lift (upwards), Weight (downwards), Thrust (from engines) and Drag (from going fast through the air).
      In order to fly you obviously need an engine to create Thrust to overcome the Drag. Also you need to create a pressure difference between top and bottom surface of the wing to generate Lift that will overcome the Weight of the aircraft – that is why the wings are shaped the way they are:)
      I hope that brief explanations gives you an idea of how planes fly.
      It’s fascinating 🙂

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