Can anyone explain to me in simple english how airplanes fly?

Answer 1

Simply put - the air going over the wing travels farther than the air going under it (because of its shape - rounded on the top.) This makes the pressure lower on top which creates lift. Enough lift and the plane will fly.

The engines are needed to create enough thrust to create the needed speed, and all the rest is just stabilizers and control surfaces and the like.

And yes, the lift created by the pressure difference across the wings is more than enough to lift hundreds of thousands of pounds of plane, fuel, and cargo.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Basically, there are 4 forces at work:
Thrust-the force that makes the aircraft go forward; usually an engine of some type.
Drag-the force trying to slow you down; usually part of the aircraft hitting the air.
Lift-the force trying to make the aircraft rise
Gravity-the force trying to make the aircraft go down.
The hand-out-the-window-of-your-car experiment gives you some idea of lift, but notice how your hand is also being pushed back towards the back of your car. That's drag. To reduce drag, they shape the wing, front to back, like a teardrop but flatter on the bottom. In flight, this creates a pressure differential-higher pressure on the bottom, lower pressure on top which gives you lift like angling the wing but more efficient (less drag) At a certain airspeed (depends on the aircraft) the lift created by the airflow over and under the wing overcomes the force of gravity and Eureka! you're flying!

Answer 4

OK .. in simple english.. and nice examples:

Now.. think of this: remember (if not try it next time when you are driving) when u get the palm of your hand outside of the car window while it is moving.. do u feel that pressure on your hand.....ok now also remember when u get that palm hand straight with an angle.. do u feel ur hand wants to fly up or down.. ok now simply think of the palm of ur hand as the aircraft wing but in a larger scale.. when it is directed to a positive angle against the wind, it goes up .. when the angle is negative, it goes down....ok now.. how did u get that fast wind moves across ur hand?.. well in ur test case, you got the car moving fast. and that created a fast wind. Now for an aircraft that has wings what should move it forward so that it creates that fast wind to lift it up?... well,the answer is for aircrafts they got what it called "engines" (either jet engine, propeller engine, or a rocket), engines pushes the air backward so that the aircraft move forward fast... with the wings have a positive angle , the aircraft goes up.. and that's it.. very simple.

Answer 5

The wing is flat on the bottom and curved on top. pretent two air molecules are chatting and a wing goes between them. The one on the bottom just stays still and experiences 2 meters of wing rubbing it. The one on top moves over the curve of the wing and experiences 2 and a half meters of wing due to that curve. So these two molecules don't get to meet up and continue their conversation on the other side of the wing as they are now half a meter apart. But what is between them at this precise moment? Nothing, not even air molecules. There is a vacuum between them created by the wing. This vacuum occurs at the rear of the wing and on top of the wing. This vacuum then sucks the wing and therefore the whole airplane, upwards. So as long as the plane is moving forwards (engines) this vacuum provides lift and breaks up heaps of molecule conversations.

Answer 6

I may not be the smartest guy around town, but just because hopefully, soon I'll be working on my flight instructor rating I'm going to try to explain you this, well how it goes is due to two smart guy's discoveries one was called sir Isac newton (physic) and the other one Daniel Bernoulli (scientist and mathematician for some reason) well, newton's 3rd law of motion says that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" relative wind impacting lower chamber of the wing bumping it upwards specially in high angle of attack conditions, now in straight and level flight that has to do with the other smart guy: Daniel Bernoulli's principle which says "as the velocity of a fluid increases, its pressure decreases" this has to do with the shape of the wing which acts as a venturi, the bottom chamber is flat and the upper chamber is curved therefor air travel across the top and bottom in the same time, so air has to travel slower on the bottom due to no resistance created by the flat structure (creating more pressure) and faster on top due to resistance created by the curved structure (creating less pressure).
sorry, If cannot be more simplistic.

***correct me if i'm wrong...

Answer 7

Heavier than air aircraft, or aerodynes, include autogyros, helicopters and conventional fixed-wing aircraft (aeroplanes). Fixed-wing aircraft generally use an internal-combustion engine in the form of a piston engine (with a propeller) or a turbine engine (jet or turboprop), to provide thrust that moves the craft forward through the air. The movement of air over the wings produces lift that causes the aircraft to fly. Exceptions include gliders which have no engines and gain their thrust, initially, from winches or tugs and then from gravity and thermal currents. For a glider to maintain its forward speed it must descend in relation to the air (but not necessarily in relation to the ground). Helicopters and autogyros use a spinning rotor (a rotary wing) to provide lift; helicopters also use the rotor to provide thrust. Gyrodynes are aircraft intermediate between helicopters and autogyros, whose rotor is sometimes powered (often by a jet at its tips) but which do not have a tail rotor. Heliplanes are combination aircraft with both a rotor and wings; they can take off and land vertically, and hover, like a helicopter, but use their wings for high speed flight. The abbreviation "VTOL" is applied to aircraft that can take off and land vertically. "STOL" stands for Short Take Off and Landing.

Answer 8

wing moving forward slices the air. Curved surface on top of the wing forces the air on top to speed up to catch up with the air on the bottom, the speeding air on top makes for a lower air pressure that the pokey slow air on the bottom of the wing causing the wing to rise.

Answer 9

a plane has flaps alerons annd rudder which makes it fly up like when a plane is taking a run up and wind when the flaps are put up the air strikes the flaps and the front portion is put up thus it flies in the air and turns with the help of the rudder

Answer 10

airplanes are powered gliders they are pushed through the air by fuel and the wings foils give them lift