Flying With Wings
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Picture: EXTRA Flugzeugproduktion- u. Vertriebs- GmbH |
Flying is the controlled movement of a body through the air. Wings are special surfaces that are suitable for generating lift. For this purpose, they are set at a relatively flat angle to their direction of movement. Rotor blades, propellers, insect wings etc. are also wings that can generate lift or, depending on their orientation, propulsion.
Everything that is heavier than air, such as our aircrafts, can only fly dynamically. Even if almost all aircraft are equipped with wings, the correct statement "an airplane flies because it has wings that act on the air" does not reveal the true physical reason for flying.
For example, in knife-edge flight the fuselage essentially takes over the function of the wing (lift generation), and the propeller also plays its part. If the presence of a wing cannot fully explain the cause of flight, then the wing profile cannot provide the answer either. Especially not because a wing profile is not necessarily required.
You can also fly with a flat plate, the wing profile of an F-104 is almost a flat plate without extending the lift aids, there is a slight thickening mainly for strength reasons. A special form of the flat plate is the curved plate. The upper and lower sides have the same running length, the curved plate is significantly more effective than the flat one. Lilienthal discovered this more than 130 years ago. Of course, we are aware that lift and flight characteristics can be significantly optimized with sophisticated wings and wing profiles.
If we still talk about the wing, wing surface and airfoil, it is only because the wing represents an optimized lift-producing surface. Such optimized airfoils (e.g. Clark-Y) are illustrated hereinafter. The pressure ratios are slightly different for non-optimized profiles such as a flat plate or a curved plate, but in principle not essential. The elementary laws of nature are universally applicable to all bodies and therefore also to fuselage and wings with every kind of airfoil or no profiling.
We have already dealt with gravity, now it is time to look at the medium of air.
Lift Against Gravity ⇐ | ⇒ The Air Pressure