Someone explain to me why planes fly?

[dolo amber]

I know, thrust, velocity, blahblahblah whatever...I ain't buyin' it. It makes NO sense to me how they get all those tons of steel into the air.

I suspect goblins. :P

[jburton]

1. Magic, or maybe Jeebus?

:crazy:

[7th_Sephiroth]

2. actually. its pixies

millions of em get under each wing and lift the plane into the sky

[Whitacre D_WI]

9. There are only four Pixies, silly.

Okay, five if you count that tour when Joey broke his arm and his brother Bob had to play guitar. And six if you count Eric Drew Feldman.

But still.

[dolo amber]

16. Not only that...

But I fail to see how Black Francis' portly ass is gonna be lending ANY assistance in getting anything off the ground...:think:

[Whitacre D_WI]

18. Silly.

He FLOATS!

[Terry_M]

3. I believe

It's some kind of right-wing conspiracy!

[havocmom]

4. gravity suckers

yep, that's it

[xultar]

5. It is all about lift baby...

[Wonk]

6. They don't swim very well.

http://www.av8n.com/how/htm/4forces.html

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Part of it is the Bernoulli effect.

In horizontal flow of a fluid (air, in this case)an increase in velocity results in a decrease in pressure. Due to the shape of an airplane's wing, the airflow over the top of the wing is faster than on the bottom, thus pressure is greater on the underside of the wing, which creates lift.

[Whitacre D_WI]

11. That's why a curveball curves.

And that is the SUM TOTAL of my knowledge of physics!

[JVS]

12. That's right

I vote for your answer

[Endangered Specie]

21. Then how does a plane fly upside down...

according to that, it would not only fall, but fall faster than a normal freefall.

[Whitacre D_WI]

23. Flaps.

The pilot uses the flaps to change the shape of the wing.

[MercutioATC]

25. Actually, no. It all depends on the chord angle...

...in relation to the shape of the airfoil.

...ummmm....or something like that.

[Speck Tater]

29. A Jet fighter has symmetrical wings, so

it doesn't matter if it's flying right side up or upside down. The lift is controlled by angle of attack, which is the angle of the relative wind to the chord of the wing.

I'm a programmer working in aerodynamics, but I never realized how hard this stuff is to explain without assuming too much or too little. It's so second nature to me I'm not sure if what I'm saying makes any snese to someone who isn't into physics.

[Endangered Specie]

45. Please do try to explain it then

heavy on the math and physics.

[TreasonousBastard]

53. Precisely the same reason that a sailboat...

goes faster tacking into the wind than running with the wind behind it.

Before Prince Henry the Navigator, it was believed that sailing into the wind was the Devil's work and no one dared do it.

Some still believe spinnakers and airplanes are Satanic devices.

[MercutioATC]

28. It's lift under the wing in relation to negative lift over the wing...

Planes fly, in part, because they suck.

[Squeegee]

51. Come no...

...we all know it's due to the government's research into anti-gravity machines recovered from crashed UFOs. ;)

[MnFats]

8. Magic. Look at that thing.

Have you seen a 747?
They're fucking huge.
I still have to stop when I see one taking off and marvel at it.
here they have the new 747s take off, fully loaded with people, their belongings and fuel for a trip to Japan. They could not possibly hold any more weight.
They take almost all of the fuggin' runway to get airborne.
It's scary to watch.


See, an object that large and heavy cannot possibly get airborne. It must defy the laws of physics.

So it can only be magic.

[dolo amber]

13. Clearly, you are

the most logical person on this board. ;)

We have a winnah! (Goblins are magic, right? :D)

[MnFats]

33. why thank you. best moment of my day.

so you can imagine what kind of day i have had.

[Servo300]

58. if you think a 747 is huge.....

then check out the Airbus A380, which will begin service sometime in 2006:

http://www.airliners.net/info/stats.main?id=29

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

60. LE MONSTER!!!

:wow:

[Speck Tater]

10. Seriously...

The short answer is that the shape of the wing is designed to create a partial vacuum above its top surface which sucks the wing up.

The long answer (more technically correct than the short answer) will be found on this excellent NASA site: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/bga.html

--gary

[Don_G]

14. Kinda Like The "Flying Nun"

Thrust plus lift overcomes gravity and is ultimately superior to the non-union air-traffic controllers, the habitual multi-billion industry bankruptcies/bail-outs and the Patriot Act.

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. The plane has to fall to the ground but be distracted at the last moment

then it misses the ground, and flies!

[dolo amber]

19. Holy crap

OF COURSE!! How silly of me not to have figured that one out!!

Thank you, Rabrrrrrr....I will never fear flying again! :D

edit: Actually, I don't mind flying, it's takeoff that usually has me :puke:-ing. They haven't made drugs strong enough yet that will stop my brain from poking me and being all "You...DO realize it's completely daft that this huge, hulking chunk of steel is attempting to fling itself into the sky, right?" :D

[Rabrrrrrr]

27. Glad I could help!

And glad I eased your fear of flying.

But I do understand the questioning of airplanes - certainly, as an engineer I know why and understand it. But I live on the path into LaGuardia so see planes all the time and even seeing many a day, I'm still amazed each time that those planes stay in the air.

I'm also amazed that the planes that have the jets on the tail fin can actualy go straight, without the power of the jets creating a moment arm (sorry for the physics speak there) and spinning the plane out of control.

[Snoggera]

17. because they can't swim!

ba dum! crash, bang boom!

[arwalden]

20. How Stuff Works.Com ... Here You Go. (I Love This Site!)

http://travel.howstuffworks.com/airplane1.htm

[dolo amber]

26. Thanks for that

I've read stuff like that before. It makes sense but at the same time, it's still just utterly silly that it works, y'know? :D

[Whitacre D_WI]

22. It only happens when the plane is in that place between dream and awake.

[Birthmark]

24. The easy explanation

The go so fast that they don't have time to fall. :)

[Ready4Change]

41. No, that's how satellites stay in orbit.

They are literally moving fast enough that they never quite hit the ground.

[rooboy]

30. Fear - if they don't, John Ashcroft will sing to them. n/t

[Speck Tater]

31. Sick your hand out of the car window at 60 MPH

Turn it parallel to the ground and then tilt it up slightly. You'll feel the lift as the angle of attack on your hand changes.

With your thunb on the leading edge, tuck your thumb under slightly creating more camber under the airfoil made by your hand. Feel the lift increase.

[mad_russian]

32. Planes fly my dear, because

I GOT HIGH ON SCRAPINGS FROM MY NAILS
NOW I'M BACK DOWN MY EYES ARE GROWING DARK
MY BURNT SPOON HAS DRIED BENEATH THE BED
AND I'M DREAMING OF DIRTY BLUE BALLOONS....


they float...


shhh...;)

[dolo amber]

36. Excellent song!!

So, you're saying all planes are hooked on the junk? :D ;)

[mad_russian]

37. nope, I'm saying...

Saturday Saviour and Sargeant Politeness, Segue once, to Smoking Umbrellas...meanwhile, Pillowhead stared at the Blank Segue 2 Dirty Blue Ballons. Solaris is Pitiful, and Leo woke up in his bed again-just in time for the Nurse who Loved Him to sing him Another Space Song...The Heliotropic Rose bloomed into Daylight---and Comfort is Magnified...


know what I mean?

edited for spelling...

[mad_russian]

46. I wish you'd read this one: "nope, I'm saying"...

[JPJones]

34. This explains everything

[mad_russian]

35. there's an Fx, an Fy and an Fz in that thing....tell me

where's the Fu?


jk

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[qwertyMike]

39. Humans can fly too

Just launch youself forward and don't touch the ground.
Simple.
(From HH Guide to the Galaxy or one of the 4 books in the trilogy.
Or was it 5?)

[mad_russian]

40. DOLO! come over, say hi to me...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=1135666&mesg_id=1135666

[ladjf]

42. Bernolli

[TheRedMan]

43. One Minor Quibble - Airplanes are not steel.

Airplanes are not made of steel. They are largely aluminum. Considerably lighter, and still meets the strength requirements. (Considering that I was lugging a inch-thick 2' aluminum plate that would have killed me were it steel, you notice these things).

I'm a materials engineer, and it's what I notice. The hand-out-the-car-window analogy is pretty good, so I don't think I can add to that.

[dolo amber]

44. I did not know that!

Well, that makes the utter absurdity of them flinging themselves into the air a little less stressful...:D

Thanks! :hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

47. Now, your basic cast iron plane, that's a miracle of flight

[Nihil]

57. Yep

> The hand-out-the-car-window analogy is pretty good

... and it has the added bonus that it sorts out the ****ers who use
a hand-held cellphone while driving: either they drop the phone so
the person behind can drive over it or they use the other hand and crash!

:evilgrin:

[Ready4Change]

48. Bernoulli's not an intuitive answer.

Don't think of fast moving air sucking the wing up into the air. Think instead of the wing pushing a whole lot of air down.

Air is stuff. It has weight, it has mass. Due to one of Newtons Laws of Physics, each pound of air thrown down allows one pound of something else to go up. In the case of flight, that something going up is an airplane. That's also why a 747 takes so long to take off. It has to accelerate to such a speed that it can shove air down at a fast enough rate to counter it's own weight.

[Rabrrrrrr]

49. If you want to be scared, read this one:

Lots of commercial jets, when they take off, have far too much mass to safely land.

I always thought that was pretty cool.

[trof]

61. Well...weight, rather than mass.

Very true.
Especially on long distance/heavy fuel load flights.
Design max take-off weights are far higher than landing weights.
I once dumped 60,000 lbs. of jet fuel (B-747) over the North Atlantic when a malfunction forced us to return to Amsterdam and land. Had to get down to max landing weight.

[Kenneth ken]

50. because

the wingspan is too wide for them to make it under the overpasses if they took the highway.

:hi:

[Wapsie B]

52. The takeoff and landing are ok by me.

It's the damned turbulence that freaks me out.

[truthspeaker]

56. take-off, landing, turbulence, none of them bother me

But sitting on the runway for 45 minutes waiting for clearance to take off drives me batty!

[TreasonousBastard]

54. They fly...

simply because that is what they do.

Like bats and bumblebees, which also should not be able to fly but do because that is what they do.

[Nihil]

55. Cool!

Does that mean that if I throw a small stone in the air near a 747
it will swoop down and catch it?

Or did you mean that the planes buzz around from one terminal to
another until they've gathered enough nectar that they have to go
back to their hangars to store it?

Mind you, having tasted United Airways honey, that one might not be
far from the truth ...

:silly:

Nihil

[BiggJawn]

59. Easier to explain Helicopters...

They're so butt-ugly that the Earth rejects them, thus they SEEM to fly....

[leftofthedial]

62. so people can get from one place to another

faster than driving or walking.

glad I could help.