The Airfield Top Secret Blueprints Coaching and Troubleshooting Aero M3 Math Connection Wind Tubes and Tunnels
Aerospace Engineering
Aeronautical Engineering – this field of engineering deals with designing and building aircraft that operate within the Earth’s atmosphere.
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Astronautical Engineering – this field engineering deals with designing and building aircraft that operate outside of Earth’s atmosphere (space).
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The Plane
The wing surface that interacts with the surrounding air
“Lift” is what holds flying things up. In an airplane, lift is made by the wing moving through the air.
Air is pushing on us all the time. Still air pushes from every direction equally (our skin is used to this pressure, which is why we don’t notice it). We can feel wind, because that’s moving air, which hits only one side of us and feels like a bigger push.
A wing surface that is curved on top and flat on the bottom creates a pressure difference on one side. The air flows faster over the top, reducing the pressure pushing down on that surface. The greater pressure pushing on the bottom lifts it up. This kind of curve is called camber. Different aircraft designs use different camber for different effects as they balance other elements of the aircraft design.
“Lift” is what holds flying things up. In an airplane, lift is made by the wing moving through the air.
Air is pushing on us all the time. Still air pushes from every direction equally (our skin is used to this pressure, which is why we don’t notice it). We can feel wind, because that’s moving air, which hits only one side of us and feels like a bigger push.
Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli’s studies of water flow in the 1700s also apply to aviation. Bernoulli's Principle says that the faster a fluid flows, the less pressure it exerts. So if the air on the top of the wing is going faster, there’s less pressure pushing down. That means the higher pressure on the bottom of the wing pushes it up, creating lift.
A wing surface that is curved on top and flat on the bottom creates a pressure difference on one side. The air flows faster over the top, reducing the pressure pushing down on that surface. The greater pressure pushing on the bottom lifts it up. This kind of curve is called camber. Different aircraft designs use different camber for different effects as they balance other elements of the aircraft design.
Pioneer aviation designer Henri Coanda of Romania noted the Coanda Effect in 1910: fluids (like air and water) tend to stay attached to surfaces they flow over. This means that air follows the curve at the top of the wing. By increasing the angle of attack (the angle at which the wing hits the airflow) you can increase the amount of lift. Air going over the top of the wing has to go faster, and air striking the bottom creates more pressure. The bigger the angle, the more lift.
But if the angle becomes too big, the Coanda Effect stops, and the air comes unstuck and gets turbulent. If that happens, the wing stops making lift and stalls. In other words, it stops flying.
Video clips from Massachusetts Institute of Technology AeroAstro Lab.
Flight Simulator
Some of the most immediate lessons in cause-and-effect, impulse-versus-reflection, and the cycle of observation, orientation, decision, and action come from time spent learning to fly. This flight simulator is exceptionally well-modeled and coded.
Paper Airplane Design Challenge
4th Grade ALERT Double Top-Secret Airfield
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