Tuesday, June 2, 2015

What are the forces that act on an airplane?

In this third post, we will talk about the forces that act on an airplane.

There are four forces that act on an airplane.

Weight, which is a downward force, is due to the weight of the aircraft and the effect of gravity.
Lift, which is an upward force, is due to the airfoil dynamic shape of the wings.

Thrust, which is the forward pulling force, is generated by the power plant or the engine and the propellers attached to it.
Drag, which is the backward pushing force, is generated by the friction between the body of the airplane and the relative air or by the tires with the tarmac when the aircraft is on the ground.


The total weight of an airplane will include the weight of the body, the fuel, the cargo and the occupants.
The lift opposes the weight and once it becomes equal or greater than the weight,  the airplane will airborne and starts climbing into the air. The lift is generated by the wings design. Wings are curved in shape making it an airfoil.  This is called Bernoulli's principles. (will talk about it in more details in the next post).

The thrust generated by the engine, overcomes the drag and thus the airplane will start moving forward. The faster the airplane moves, the faster the air passes through. Therefore, the more power generated by the engine, the faster the airplane will roll or fly into the air.

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