• Question: How Do Planes Stay Up

    Asked by anon-174804 to Alex, Carl, Hayley, Melanie, Tim, Yewande on 12 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Yewande Oyekenu

      Yewande Oyekenu answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      Planes have wings and are also called “Big Birds“. The same way that birds fly and stay up is the principle planes use as well. The wings of a plane are designed to push air downwards thereby making the plane move upwards with a force known as the “lift“ that can maintain the weight of the plane in the air.

    • Photo: Alex Seeney

      Alex Seeney answered on 12 Jun 2018:

      Great question!

      Planes create a force called lift – this moves the plan upwards. The plane creates this by moving forwards through the air, and it is able to do this because of the motion created by the engines – we call this thrust.

      So, the engines create thrust to move the plane forward, and this forward motion creates lift, moving the plane upwards.

      We also have drag, which is the resistance that acts against the plane moving forwards, and we have the weight of the plane pulling it down due to gravity. So in order to fly, the thrust and lift forces need to be stronger than the drag and weight forces!

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