Man has always dreamed of flying in the sky. Remember the story of Icarus and his son? This, of course, is just a myth, and as it was, in fact, we will never know, but this story reveals the thirst to soar in the sky. The first attempts to fly into the sky were made with the help of a huge balloon, which is now rather a means for romantic walks in the sky, then an airship appeared, and with this later planes and helicopters appear. Now it’s practically no news or unusual for anyone that you can fly in 3 hours by plane to another continent. But how is this going? Why are planes flying and not falling?
The explanation from a physical point of view is quite simple, but harder to put into practice
For many years, various experiments were carried out to create a flying machine, many prototypes were created. But to understand why planes fly, it is enough to know Newton’s second law and be able to reproduce it in practice. Now people already, to be more precise, engineers and scientists, are trying to create such a machine that would fly at tremendous speeds that exceed the speed of sound several times. That is, the question already is not how planes fly, but how to make them fly faster.
Two things for a plane to take off - powerful engines and proper wing design
Engines create tremendous traction that pushes aircraft designs forward. But this is not enough, because you also need to rise up, and in this situation it turns out that so far we can only accelerate on the surface to tremendous speed. The next important point is the shape of the wings and the body of the aircraft. It is they who create the lifting force. The wings are made so that under them the air becomes slower than above them, and as a result, it turns out that the air from the bottom pushes the body up, and the air above the wing is unable to resist this effect when the aircraft reaches a certain speed. This phenomenon is called lifting force in physics, and to understand this in more detail, you need to have a little knowledge of aerodynamics and other related laws. But to understand why planes fly, this knowledge is enough.
Landing and take-off - what is needed for this machine?
An airplane needs a huge runway, or rather, a long runway. This is due to the fact that he first needs to gain a certain speed for takeoff. In order for the lift force to begin to act, it is necessary to accelerate the aircraft to such a speed that the air from the bottom of the wings will begin to lift the structure up. The question of why planes fly low concerns this particular part when the car is on takeoff or landing. A low start makes it possible for an airplane to fly very high into the sky, and we often see this in clear weather - scheduled airplanes, leaving a white mark behind them, move people from one point to another much faster than can be done with land transport or sea.
Fuel for aircraft
Also interested in why planes fly on kerosene. Yes, basically it is, but the fact is that some types of equipment use familiar gasoline and even diesel fuel as fuel.
But what is the advantage of kerosene? There are several of them.
The first, probably, can be called its value. It is much cheaper than gasoline. The second reason can be called its lightness, in comparison with the same gasoline. Kerosene also tends to burn, so to speak, smoothly. In cars - cars or trucks - we need the ability to abruptly turn the engine on and off when the aircraft is designed to start it and constantly maintain the turbine at a given speed for a long time, if we talk about passenger aircraft. Light aircraft, which is not intended for the transport of huge cargoes, but for the most part is connected with the military industry, with the agricultural sector and so on (such a machine can accommodate only two people), is small and maneuverable, and therefore gasoline is suitable for this area. Its explosive combustion is suitable for the type of turbines that are installed in light aircraft.
Is a helicopter a competitor or a friend to an airplane?
An interesting invention of mankind related to movement in mid-air is a helicopter. He has the main advantage over the aircraft - vertical takeoff and landing. It does not require a huge space for acceleration, and why do airplanes fly only from places equipped for this purpose? That's right, you need a fairly long and smooth surface. Otherwise, the outcome of a landing somewhere in the field could be fraught with the destruction of the machine, and even worse - human casualties. A helicopter landing can be made on the roof of the building, which is adapted, at the stadium, etc. For the aircraft, this function is not available, although designers are already working to combine the power and speed of the aircraft with vertical take-off.