How Do Planes Fly?

Invention of airplanes is one of the greatest evolutions in the modern communication system. But few centuries ago, this was completely impossible to think. Credits go to the Wright brothers who invented power flight almost one century ago. All their hard works, experiments, researches and dedications become successful and accelerated our world.

How does it fly?

We see jet planes fly higher than usual airplanes. They even exhaust a lot of smoke on the air because jet engines are long metal tubes where continuous rush of fuel is burning. Jet engines are also far noisier than usual airplane engines. Two most important parts of a plane that help it to fly are Engine and Wings. They both work together to lift a plane up and move forward. But they have differences between them. A plane engine is developed to move the plane forward at high speed. Moving of the plane makes the air flow over the wings. The design of the wings forces the air to go downward and pushes the plane upward. The upward momentum created by a downward force is called lift. The lift force is greater than planes weight. It makes the plane detach from the ground and fly up. The process can be explained by Newton’s Third law of Motion.

How does wing work?

Wings are the main part to make a plane fly. It has two surfaces: upper and lower. The upper surface is usually curved and the lower surface is flatter. This design creates a cross sectional shape called airfoil. As air goes over the upper curved surface, it travels further than the air passes below it. So, it goes faster. According to Bernoulli’s law, Fast moving air has lower pressure than slow moving air. So the pressure created in the upper surface is lower than the pressure of lower surface. As there is low pressure upside the plane goes upward. This pressure difference makes the lift of a plane.

How does Helicopter fly?

Helicopter doesn’t actually run, they can stay on the air. Helicopter rotors use the similar technique as the airfoils do. It creates a huge downwash of air to balance the weight of helicopter. Helicopter rotors also have curves. As the chopper engine starts the rotation of the rotor, the rotor rotates at a constant speed and force the air downward. The downward force of air hits the ground and gives the chopper upward lift. It follows the third law of Newton.

How do planes steer?

Steering something means changing the direction of a vehicle. Changing the direction results in change of velocity and acceleration. To move something, we need to apply force. So, when it comes to steer something, we need to apply force to it. The force is called Centripetal force. Centripetal force usually comes from the friction when a vehicle is in touch with the ground. But how does plane steer without being in touch with the ground? It actually leans into a curve. The plane usually leans into an angle and changes the direction with a curve of banking. The banking of the plane provides centripetal force.

Other parts of a plane-

Fuel tank: As planes fly burning fuels, it must have a fuel tank where fuels will burn and produce energy to move the plane with great speed.

Landing gear: Plane’s wheels are hidden inside the plane while flying to avoid dragging. Planes land on these wheels. When plane prepares to land, the wheels come out.

Radio and Radar: These systems are essential for a plane to navigate from the sky. Skies these days are so busy with a lot of air traffic. So, Radio, Radar and Satellite is useful to communicate between planes and with airports.

Pressurized cabins: Planes should have pressurized cabins because as plane goes high, the air pressure reduces. To maintain the pressure balance, pressurized cabins pump heated air so that people can breathe easily.

Although planes fly following a simple scientific method but the mechanism of it is far more complex. Scientists and inventors are developing the aircraft system every moment. We are getting more and more modernized aircrafts. The communication system over the sky is getting easier and fast. Even few decades ago the situation was quite different but today we see thousands of flights all over the world is taking place in just a moment. This is a blessing of science.