• Question: how are aeroplanes able to fly when they have so much weight on them?

    Asked by yassie to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 19 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      The wings of planes are designed to lift the body when the thing is travelling forwards. It’s one of the amazing ways we can use the laws of physics to trick them into letting us fly!

    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Aeroplanes generate lift using their wings. Because the wings are made a certain shape there is a pressure difference created when air streams over them. The pressure below is higher than the pressure above the wing, mean it gets ‘pushed’ upwards.

      Designing wings is very complicated – the amount of lift depends on lots of factors like the angle of the wing, the shape of the wing, how fast the aeroplane is moving, and some other stuff.

      When you’re on an aeroplane and it’s coming in to land you may notice panels at the back of the wing extending. These are extra flaps that increase the lift of the wing, because the aircraft has to slow down to land and this reduces the overall lift.

    • Photo: Catherine Rix

      Catherine Rix answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      The wing of an aeroplane is shaped so that the air moves faster over the top of the wing than under the bottom of the wing. This generates a upward force. The heavier the aeroplane is the faster it has to move to generate enough upwards force to take off. Check out this youtube video which explains it really well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv3m57u6ViE

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Their wings are specially designed to create “lift” which is an upwards force from air moving fast across the wing.

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      The basic principle is lift: when they are sitting on the ground, they are basically stuck there. But the wings are made in a special shape that means that when air is flowing over them, they can generate a force that is bigger than the weight of the plane.

      So a plane gets ready on the runway, starts up its engines, and moves forwards, getting faster and faster. Eventually the lift produced by the wings overcomes the force due to gravity and the plane can lift up off the ground.

      It is very important to keep above a certain speed when in the air, otherwise the plane can stall and the lift disappears and you start going down, very fast. That was the problem with the Air France plane that crashed into the ocean a couple of years ago.

Comments