We use planes often to travel from place to place. Sometimes it can be for holidays, sometimes it could be work-related, and sometimes to visit family. But have you ever wondered how a plane stays in the air? It’s no coincidence that the plane stays in the air. So in this article, I will explain to you the basics of flight.
Lift
Lift is arguably the most important part about flight, because without lift, the plane would stay on the ground, and act more like a car. Lift is created by the wings of the airplane. As the engines produce more power and the aircraft gains speed, the air flows over and under the wings faster and faster. Once the air flowing over the wing gets faster than the air under the wing, the plane generates lift.
Thrust
Thrust is generated by the engines or propellers attached to the aircraft. It propels it faster through the sky. There are 2 main types of engines. You’ll find propellers on smaller planes, and jet engines on other ones, where the air is brought in through the front, mixed with fuel and lit to create thrust.
Weight and Drag
Do you ever wonder how planes slow down? Reducing thrust for the engines can help, but how can a plane slow down even further? If you’ve ever sat on the wing of a plane, you may have noticed things popping up on them called spoilers. These are sometimes raised in the air and are always raised right after landing. These raise up on the top of the wing to disrupt the flow of air, which reduces the amount of lift the plane generates, thus slowing the plane down.
How Are Planes Controlled?
Planes are controlled on 3 axes. One is called the roll, one is the pitch, and the other is the yaw.
To control the roll, you can usually find a part at the edge of the wing that is not fixed, but moves, called the aileron. When the aileron moves upwards on one wing, it will do the opposite on the other wing, causing the plane to turn.
To control the pitch, there are usually pieces that can move on the back of the horizontal stabilizer (which looks like a smaller wing at the back of the plane) called elevators. These move up and down, and cause the plane to move up and down.
To control the yaw, on the back of the tail of the plane, is something called a rudder, that moves one way to cause the plane to turn without tilting to one side much, if you use minimal rudder. If more rudder is used, the plane will start to tilt though.
Written by Overclocked RGB
The Anonymous Helpers (TAH)
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