What forces act on an airplane?

What forces act on an airplane?

There are four forces acting on an airplane in flight: 
lift, weight, thrust and drag.

We already know that lift comes from the wings. What about the other forces?

Weight is a force caused by gravity. You've felt gravity every time you jump. Gravity is what pulls you and everything else back down to the ground. This "pulling down" by gravity is what causes you to have a "weight" that you measure when you step on a bathroom scale. An airplane's weight also pulls downward on it - directly opposite to the lift force that is pulling the airplane up. It's like the lift and weight forces are playing a game of tug-of-war. One pulls in one direction and the other pulls in the opposite direction. For level flight, lift and weight must balance each other out.

Thrust, caused by the airplane's engines, is the force that moves the airplane forward. If an airplane did not keep moving, air would stop moving over and under the wings. Without this movement of air, the wings could not create lift, and the airplane would start to fall back to the ground!


Drag is the force that tries to slow down a moving object. To lessen the drag that an airplane feels, most airplanes are made more aerodynamic, or streamlined, to reduce the amount of drag they feel. A streamlined airplane has smooth surfaces and no bumpy sections, causing as little resistance to the air as possible. Just like lift and weight are opposite forces, thrust and drag are opposites to each other too. For an airplane to keep flying, its thrust must be bigger than its drag.

 For any query comment your question here and for contect me at faiyazpatel555@gmail.com. 
      My other blogs Or read more at:
 Thanks for visit ........... 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Empennage

Image
Empennage     The empennage, commonly called the tail assembly (see figure 1-7), is the rear section of the body of the airplane. Its main purpose is to give stability to the aircraft.  The fixed parts are the horizontal stabilizer and the vertical stabilizer or fin. The front, fixed section is called the  horizontal stabilizer  and is used to p revent the airplane from pitching up or down .   The rear section is called the  elevator  and is usually hinged to the horizontal stabilizer. The elevator is a movable airfoil that  controls the up-and-down motion of the aircraft's nose.    The vertical tail structure is divided into the  vertical stabilizer and the rudder . The front section is called the  vertical stabilizer and is used to prevent the aircraft from yawing back and forth .  The principle behind its operation is much like the principle of a deep keel on a sailboat. In ligh...
Read more

Power Plant

Image
 Power Plant    The power plant may be an engine and propeller combination or a jet engine. The most commonly used power plant in personal aircraft is the gasoline engine, which will be studied in detail later in this chapter. It is mounted in position against a fire wall in the front section of the airplane. The fire wall provides separation of the power plant from the remainder of the fuselage. The engine cowling is the metal covering which encases the engine and its accessories, streamlining the plane and conducting air around the engine cylinders for cooling. Because the action of the pistons is an up-and-down movement, this engine is called a reciprocating engine or a piston engine. In multiengine aircraft, the engines are usually mounted on the leading edges of the wings.   The jet engine gives the airplane a thrust (push forward) because of the jet exhaust gas coming out of the back of the engine. The moving part of this engine is a turbi...
Read more

Top 10 Best Aeronautical Engineering Colleges in The World - 2018

Image
Aeronautical engineering involves the study of aircrafts and spacecraft’s. This course prepares the Top 10 Richest students to design and engineer flight-capable.    This course has a vast scope for employment. Many universities have included this course in their schools to equip the enrolling students with sufficient knowledge and prepare them to serve the field of science. This course is the passport to the future because of the various developments happening in this space and in aerodynamic research. Here is the list of top universities which have successfully made use of the room available for developed to offer quality education. Students from all over the world are competing to get an admission in these universities. They are becoming their better selves every day to become worthy of selection by these universities. Students aspiring to become a good aeronautical engineer will have these universities set as their goals and in their wish list. Below are ...
Read more