For example, paper airplanes (and ones made from thin balsa wood) generate lift even though they have flat wings.

Not only that, but it's perfectly possible to design planes with airfoils that are symmetrical (looking straight down the wing) and they still produce lift. Flipping a plane over would produce 'downlift' and send it crashing to the ground. Law, fast-moving air is at lower pressure than slow-moving air, so the pressure above the wing is lower than the pressure below, and this creates the lift that powers the plane upward.Īlthough this explanation of how wings work is widely repeated, it's wrong: it gives the right answer, but for completely the wrong reasons! Think about it for a moment and you'll see that if it were true, acrobatic planes couldn't fly upside down.

According to a principle of aerodynamics called Bernoulli's It goes like this: When air rushes over the curved upper wing surface, it has to travel further than the air that passes underneath, so it has to go faster (to cover more distance in the same time). In a lot of science books and web pages, you'll read an incorrect explanation of how an airfoil like this generates lift. Photo by Tom Tschida courtesy of NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center. The wing on NASA's solar-powered Centurion plane. Photo: An airfoil wing typically has a curved upper surface and a flat lower surface. Most airplane wings have a curved upper surface and a flatter lower surface, making aĬross-sectional shape called an airfoil (or aerofoil, if you're British): Okay, so the wings are the key to making something fly-but how do they work? In one sentence, wings make lift by changing the direction and pressure of the air that crashes into them as the engines shoot them through the sky. Read more about how engines work in our detailed article on jet engines. Photo by Samuel Rogers (with added annotations by ) courtesy of US Air Force. The wings force the air downward and that pushes the plane upward. That creates a moving current of air over the wings. The force of the hot exhaust gas shooting backward from the jet engine pushes the plane forward. Photo: Newton's third law of motion-action and reaction-explains how the engines and wings work together to make a plane move through the sky. So it's the engines that move a plane forward, Which throw the air down toward the ground, generating an upward force called lift that overcomes the plane's That makes air flow rapidly over the wings, A plane's engines are designed to move itįorward at high speed. If you're trying to understand how planes fly, you need to beĬlear about the difference between the engines and the wings and theĭifferent jobs they do. Photo by Nathanael Callon courtesy of US Air Force. This creates a lift force, greater than the plane's weight, which powers the plane higher into the sky. However, during takeoff, or when the plane is attempting to climb in the sky (as shown here), the thrust from the engines pushing the plane forward exceeds the drag (air resistance) pulling it back. When the plane flies horizontally at a steady speed, lift from the wings exactly balances the plane's weight and the thrust exactly balances the drag. Photo: Four forces act on a plane in flight. Without engines, as gliders (planes with no engines), paper planes,Īnd indeed gliding birds readily show us. Rush of fuel and air, are far noisier (and far more powerful) than Jet engines, which are long metal tubes burning a continuous Land, the first thing you'll have noticed is the noise of theĮngines. If you've ever watched a jet plane taking off or coming in to

Airplane flying