2006-09-12 19:55:24 · 13 answers · asked by anilcheriyan 1 in Cars & Transportation ➔ Aircraft
No. You need to research Bernoulli's Principle.
2006-09-12 20:03:05 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Well, no airplane can stay still in air (not even for a second), so leave the term 'Commercial airplane'. A helicopter may do it, though.
The reason? Then you need to know what makes an airplane fly in the first place.
An airplane flies because of the structure of its wing. It is curved on the top and almost flat on the bottom. According to Bernoulli's principle, the higher the speed of air at a particular place, the lower is its pressure. Aircraft wings make use of this principle. When an aircraft moves through the air, the air passes the top of the wing faster than the air at the bottom (because of the curvature of the top surface).
This makes the air pressure at the top surface lower than that at the bottom of the wing. This creates a partial vacuum, resulting in the wing being 'sucked' up.As the fuselage of the plane is strong enough to support its weight, the entire aircraft goes up with the wing.
So basically an aircraft needs to be in motion to maintain its lift. If the plane stays 'still' in air as you mentioned, it says that there is no relative motion between the plane and the ambient air, so there will not be any lift, and the airplane can not fly.
This is the reason an aircraft runs a long distance on the ground before taking off. That is to generate enough lift by its wings.
However a helicopter can stay 'still' because it does not use Bernoulli's principle to stay up. It merely 'pushes' the air down forcefully by the rotor blades, and that makes it go up (by Newton's 3rd Law of Motion).
Well this is a crude explanation. There is a lot more to say on this subject, but it is not possible to go into the details. Hope you got the general idea.
2006-09-13 03:37:19 · answer #2 · answered by Debargha 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Good grief, another responder citing Bernoulli's principle. Bernoulli has little to do with it, see this web site for details:http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/right2.html
And a commercial airplane -- or any airplane, except a helicopter (or craft that works like one) -- cannot stay still in the air for any time at all. If the airplane is not moving forward, generating lift, it will be falling.
2006-09-14 15:04:24 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Commercial airliners are not manufactured to soar as a glider does. Some do have a little glide, but still not like a glider. Airliners rely on the thrust of the engines to stay in the air. Engines can only produce thrust while running and they run on a JP4 fuel mixture. Once the fuel is out, the engines go off and the plane will start its decent.
2006-09-13 11:40:12 · answer #4 · answered by j H 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Airliners have been still in the air when they came across jet stream head winds. All that is required is for the head wind to be powerful enough to stop the plane. The air is still moving under the wings so lift is maintained. Then it's a race who tires out first the wind or the planes fuel. To remedy this you simply dive out of the head wind. STOL planes can hover just using there prop wash because of the large flaps on there wings.
2006-09-15 17:42:55 · answer #5 · answered by brian L 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Amazingly some small planes can... We had to circle a runnaway over the summer and the plane kept makin turns and it was nice soft turns he said it was zero winds and we were like just sittin there we were barely moving maybe 100 mph which is about the plane's idle speed and thats all that kept us from falling at the force of gravity... We held that postition for about 45 mins due to a runnway power outage so yeah... It can all depends on the type of craft and the wind tolerances
2006-09-15 23:33:40 · answer #6 · answered by Chad 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
What?
No.
Is this a trick question?
Do you have any idea what you are talking about?
Some private aviation planes can fly very slow with full flaps and a head wind, but you'd need a hell of a head wind to make even a piper cub stay "still."
we're talking like 50mph winds. Thats not the kind of weather you want to fly a cub in.
Not to mention I'm talking about a wood and canvas bush plane, and you want to know if a hundred billion ton metal pressurized jet liner can stay still in the air?
2006-09-13 03:04:36 · answer #7 · answered by xturboexpress 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
....why do u want to know... (*looks at you suspiciously*)
actually, commercial airplanes can only stay in the air for as long as
the internal system allows them too.. they changed things now they only do what the computers allow it to do! umm yeah....
well i dont think you mean any harm .. do you? of course not!
the way you worded that question makes me nervous ;/
just kidding debarg pretty much explained it perfectly
2006-09-13 05:20:31 · answer #8 · answered by Holly 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No airplane can stay "still" in the air for any period of time at all. Airflow over the wings is necessary to stay aloft.
2006-09-13 07:53:39 · answer #9 · answered by Bostonian In MO 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A commercial airliner can NOT stay still in the air. The laws of Gravity will see to that...
2006-09-13 03:03:34 · answer #10 · answered by Ren Hoek 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋