Why don't aeroplanes fall out of the sky?

Answer 1

because aeroplanes don't fly. They hang on invisible wires and run along invisible cables in the sky .... it's true!

Answer 2

The upper surface of the wing is more curved than the lower surface, this means that the air flowing over the curved upper surface of the wing has to travel faster and farther than the air flowing under the flatter lower surface of the wing to meet at the trailing edge of the wing. The faster flow over the wing creates a partial vacuum, therefore sucking the wing upwards. the flow under the wing creates pressure and pushes the wing up, although this pressure is tiny in relation to the vacuum. Most of the lift is created by the partial vacuum.

The speed of the airfow over the wing and its angle of attack is important. The airflow has to remain in contact with the surface of the upper wing to maintain lift, if the airflow drops too low it will break away from the surface and create a turbulent flow starting at the rear of the wing and moving forwards, until it reaches a point where the wing does not generate any lift. this is called a wing stall.

The angle of attack is basically the amount of tilt the leading edge of the wing has in relation to the airflow. The steeper the angle is, the more lift will be generated (this requires a lot of engine power in slow flight for example) but this only applies up to a certain angle depending on the wing type, and again turbulent air is created and the wing stalls. It doesnt really matter what speed you travel at, once the angle is exeeded it will stall, such as in performing a steep turn or climbing steeply.

Wings come in many shapes and sizes and are designed for supersonic, subsonic or slow flight. Some have high lift devices, others dont. They are an amazing piece of engineering and i have explained the absolute basics so i hope it is of some use to you.

by the way,,, dont be affraid to fly because even jumbo jets and helicopters can glide.

Answer 3

Simple - they obey the Laws of Physics. Look up Bernoulli's Theorem and that will comprehensively answer your question in detail.
Or an easier way to grasp this principle is to take a teaspoon, hold it lightly at the end of the handle, allow the _back_ of the spoon (i.e., the curved side) to just enter a gentle, steady flow of water from your tap (faucet). Now, observe what happens? Instead of the spoon being pushed _out_ of the water flow, it moves into it. Why?
Well, the back of the spoon represents the curved surface of the wing, and the water repesents the airflow over the wing - so you have carried out a simple demonstration of why an aeroplane remains aloft!
However, if the water flow is reduced to a trickle, or stopped altogether, the spoon will 'fall' away from the flow - and that is like an aeroplane losing forward movement and reaching a critical speed below which lift is lost and it can not fly.
Fortunately, most pilots do their level best to ensure this latter event does not happen!!
NB Things like weight and thrust come into the more complex explanation, but the above will suffice in terms of answering your question.

Answer 4

Yep it's all to do with the amount of thrust the engines produce (usually quoted in lbs) and of course the aerofoil design of the wing is what makes the plane fly. The engines propel the craft forward and this in turn gets air flowing over the wing. As someone else said the air moves quicker over the top of the wing creating lift. The main forces at play are Thrust, lift and drag. Obviously you have to have more thrust and lift than drag, or you won't be flying high for long! :oD

Answer 5

The shape of the wing / airfoil moving through the air
causes a lower pressure on the top side of the wing
than on the underneath side of the wing so the airplane pushed
up by the higher pressure beneath the wing and does not fall out of the sky..

Answer 6

It's pretty simple. The wing is shaped so that the air moves more quickly over the top then under the bottom. The faster the air the lower the pressure. So it gets 'sucked' up into the sky as if a vacuum cleaner were above it.

Whil it keeps moving forward it won't fall :-)

Boring, I know, but reasonably acccurate

Answer 7

Bty96310 explained it well for the shape aspect. Wings can also be tilted a bit (like a water skier) so as to get a bit of a push from underneath as well.

The whole thing relies on forward motion or speed (from the engines pulling/pushing it forward) to make the air flow over the wings and create the lift. Thats why we have runways so that planes can build up enough speed to get enough "lift".

Answer 8

Occasionally, they do ... don't you read newspapers or listen to the news on the radio or TV? They don't actually fall, they loose power which causes the plane to slow down to the point that it looses lift. When the air speed gets too low to create lift over the wings, down you go!

Answer 9

HI there

This is a question Athur Weasley brought to mind in HP 6 and I think it is a good question. I would love to find out the answer.

smurf

Answer 10

Magic

Dooh... Beat to the punch by 13 seconds.