Air crafts play a really important role in modern transport and globalisation, by moving people and goods faster and more efficiently. Many researches also state that air travel is one of the saftes mode of transportation, but have you ever wondered what are the secrets behind its motion and design? This article will narrate the untold story of the science behind the air craft.
Air travel has three main components: take off, landing , and turning while flying.
Take off:
Simple Explanation :
Before knowing how air crafts generate lift, it is essential to know how they move forward. They achieve this using a turbofan engine. This engine relies on Newton’s third law: It generates a thrust force by pushing air backwards.
Complex Explanation :
The hot air from fuel in the combustion chamber drives a turbine , which rotates, in a clock wise direction , causing a large turbofan at the air inlet to suck air(for centripetal motion in a clockwise direction, angular acceleration is in the backward direction) inwards , which is heated in a compressor , and then further heated in a combustion chamber , thus driving the turbines at the narrower outlet and escaping at high speed due to thermal expansion. The lift is caused by the air foil shape of the wing(if you closely observe the wing, it has a curved shape , so the air flowing over it slides down , pushing the plane up by Newton’s third law).
Turning while flying:
While flying , in order to change direction, one aileron (wing component) of 1 wing is lowered(increasing the curvature and lift) and the aileron of the other wing is raised (increasing drag and reducing lift). This causes the plane to rotate, and the lift force on the wings to develop a horizontal component, and as the thrust force is perpendicular to this horizontal component, a centripetal force is developed, causing the plane to follow a circular path, until the desired direction is reached and the ailerons are adjusted back to normal.
Landing:
While landing , wing flaps are raised (to offer drag and reduce lift) and the elevators(a tail component) at the tail are lowered, to generate lift at the tail and lower the plain nose(as a moment is generated if lift is reduced at the wings and increased at the tail). The speed and thrust are also reduced by controlling the fuel in the engine.
For more information – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyeX6ArxCYI
We hope you enjoyed learning how the plane flies and let us know about any doubts.
Happy Science – ing !
The Stem Club 