How does a plane fly in the sky??

Question

How does a plane fly in the sky??

Answer 1

I am a light aircraft pilot and I own a little Kitfox 3 aircraft that I fly as much as I can. I am always amazed to see that, indeed, it goes up and hangs in the air.

As you've already been told, it is the lower pressure over the wing that 'sucks' the plane up, rather than the lower 'pushing' it.

But there is also something called the 'barn door' effect which states that you can virtually fly anything if you have enough power ... even a barn door!

An aircraft flying level is an equilibrium between four forces: Gravity that is countered by lift; and drag that is countered by thrust.

The lift to drag ratio is what makes transportation economical and it can be used for any kind of transport: camel, ship, etc. Because lift is what you can carry and drag is the energy you need to put in in order to move the goods.

In aviation, a B-747 flying at say 32,000 feet, has a good lift to drag ratio and it is a good way to transport goods. But the best way to transport things is with a WIG (Wing In Ground) craft. That is a short winged and underpowered craft that flies only a few feet above the sea. It uses the so-called 'ground effect' to optimize lift with little trust.

Unfortunately WIGs are not much used because the ICAO (aviation authorities) don't want to hear about them since they say they are not real aircraft, nor to the IMO (international maritime organization) because they are not vessels. Of course, having something weighting several tons moving at 210 knots a few feet over the water can be a problem for the 'normal' traffic. But maybe electronic surveillance will one day solve that. The Russian Orlyonok is a good example of a WIG.

Answer 2

The wing is curved so that air travles faster under the wing than it does going over the wing creating lift.

Answer 3

The simple "high static pressure below, low static pressure above" explanation suffices for most.  And it's reasonably defensible as long as you don't succumb to the "path-length" fallacy.  The path-length fallacy says that air passing over the top has to hurry toward the trailing edge to meet the air passing a shorter distance under the bottom.  There is no rule that says blobs of air separated at the leading edge have to meet at the trailing edge; the air over the top goes MUCH faster and arrives at the trailing edge quite early.

Bernoulli discovered that air moving mostly in one direction fast is too busy to push in any other direction.  So air going front-to-back very fast next to a surface won't push as hard on that surface as air moving more slowly.

There is another theory (expressed above in punctuation in someone else's answer) that says the angle of the wing deflects air downward and so in Newtonian reaction the airplane goes upward.

Which is right?  The answer is that both are.  Which is to say, the answer is that both are simplifications of what really is going on, and the effects of both can be empirically observed.  We can observe air moving much faster over the top of the wing and exerting less static pressure.  We can observe the general flow behind the trailing edge trending downward (e.g., in airplanes flying low over cloud banks, the clouds are "blown" downward in the airplane's wake).

But in fact advanced aerodynamics goes beyond both these views.  One model says that the downward-trending air after the trailing edge actually sets up a virtual circulation around the wing.  Some of it doesn't go just down, it actually goes forward again across the bottom of the wing.  Now it doesn't go actually forward, but it takes away from some of the rearward velocity of the lower flow, increasing its static pressure.

There are all sorts of discussions about viscosity, effective angles of attack and whether the slanted trailing edge of an (un)tilted wing generates downward flow, but they really only allude to the notion that airfoil dynamics are quite a bit more complex than what we learn in school.

Why do they lie to us in school?  Because the aerodynamics of flight manifest essential complexity.  That is, there's no simple yet reasonably complete answer.  So we pick one of the principles at work and talk about it, and leave the rest to those who want to crack the dense textbooks.

Answer 4

The wing creates lesser pressure above the wing than below, therefore the pressure under the wing 'pushes up" on the wing pushing it higher in the sky.  Now to create the lower pressure on top of the wing, the plane must move forward.  The propeller or jet engine does the same thing.  Look at the propeller.  They're little "wings" that go round and round....creating the same high/low pressure.  The high pressure is behind the propeller...and therefore it "pushes" the plane forward.  A jet engine works the same way inside it....but it is just "supercharged" so to speak...sucking a HUGE amount of air inside...creating MORE low pressure than a propeller...therefore faster for the plane.  

Same as in a boat with a propeller BEHIND it, the propeller then PULLS the boat through the water.

Answer 5

It mainly the motor that does it.

Answer 6

There are invisible waves in the air that lift up the wings of a plane with the right componants

Answer 7

lower airpressure over the wing, and higher air pressure under the wing.. then you need a method of propulsion to create the movement for the wind to travel over the wing... in airplanes this is done via engine whether it be a jet engine or rotary engine and prop...

in gliders taking off is dependent upon your legs moving you fast enough to create lift.

Answer 8

The wings are at an angle, sort of like this:

----> \

note that the arrow is the way the wind is blowing, and the slash is the wing.

But the wing is less vertical and more horizontal.  The wind that blows on it pushes the wing up and back at the same time.  Jet engines and propellers are used to push the plane forward, so the end result is just the uplift.

In space, there is no wind resistance, so the shape of the wings do not matter.  There must simply be engines that would thrust in each direction.

Answer 9

By the Bernoulli principle.

It is based on the observation, that the total pressure, the sum of static pressure and dynamic pressure, is constant (for small systems). The dynamic pressure increases with velocity. That means: The faster air flows, the lower has the static pressure to become.

Now, the wing profile causes the air to take a longer path above the wing, as below. This means, the air above has to travel faster as path of the lowest resistance as the air below, for meeting again at the end of the wing. This causes the pressure above the wing to be lower as below the wing: The plane gets sucked upwards.

This only works as long, as the air can flow laminar - when you make the path over the wing too long and the velocity difference between above and below the wing too large, the best way for the air is to create more and more turbulences, which don't produce lift. The plane stalls and falls down.  

Answer 10

  Increased pressure under the wing and decreased pressure on top of the wing lifts the plane.

Answer 11

'LIFT' enables an object to be pushed up or climb into the air and remain aloft during flight.

The curved surface of the wing of an aeroplane allows the air to move faster over the top of the wing than at the bottom. Thus creating low pressure at the top of the wing.The high pressure underneath pushes the wing upwards. This difference in pressure creates a lift to hold the aeroplane aloft.

Answer 12

Why don't u ask the plane itself instead of wasting time...

Silly answer for a silly question !!

Answer 13

the pilots smoke weed and start to fly the passangers away

Answer 14

bernoulis principle..

Faster the air travel.... lesser is the pressure

planes wings are curved and slightly titled down for taking off.... so more wind goes above the wings when the plane moves in the track...........since the velocity of air is higher over the wing (low pressure), than which is under the wing (high pressure), ........... the air with higher pressure tends to move towards the low pressure region............thus causing a lift.

Answer 15

The wings provide lift and the engines provide thrust!

Answer 16

This is a physics question not astronomy :p

its something to do with the curved wing and air travels faster under the wing to even out the pressure on the other side (or it mite be the other way round like air travels faster over the wing)

I'm not quite sure

Sorry if im not much help but it does have something to do with air pressure and the curved wing

Goodluck

xx

Answer 17

Bernaulli's principal.... The shape of wings is curved, which is called aerofoil shape. when this aerofoil surface moves thriugh the fluid-Air, the air  on upper surface passes easily in very much little time, but air takes a time to cross lower surface of wing due to its shape. So pressure is incresed on lower surface and decresed pressure on upper surface creates a upward force called "LIFT".