Airplane Wing Lift
Discussions focus on the physics of how airplane wings generate lift, debating common misconceptions like Bernoulli's principle versus air deflection and Newton's laws, including topics like stall speed, stability, and upside-down flight.
Activity Over Time
Top Contributors
Keywords
Sample Comments
Cue the conversation on how wing works.
Flying wings stall just fine, what makes you think otherwise?
How airplane wing really works.
Wings don't help if you are below the stall speed.
Which explains the well-known phenomenon that planes cannot fly upside down.
Same principle as aerodynamically unstable fighter jets?
Because it had wings. You can't put wings up top without even bigger wings down low to make the thing stable.
don't forget that the wings create lift, i.e., the body hangs between the wings, it's not the body that holds up the wings, it's the other way around.
That's not how lift works, don't be part of the problem! http://cospilot.com/documents/Lift.pdf
The wing is curved to force air downward without the clumsy ruddering effect described in top level comment. That downward force is the newtons law lift. If you go too fast you lose the smooth flow over the wing and you lose lift. Too slow and you don't force enough down to generate enough lift.