Timeline for How do I explain what makes an airplane fly to a non-technical person?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 3, 2023 at 7:55 | comment | added | wbeaty | Exactly right. Tiny pressures add up fast. People don't know this? A yard-square plate, with only 1psi less pressure above, will lift 1300lbs of load. (Or, a 200lbs person, standing on a yard-square plate, can be lifted by a pressure-difference of only 0.15psi.) Yet the surfaces involved are normally WAY bigger than a square yard. Air is far from weightless, and even slightly-deflected air produces the small pressures needed to lift tons of aircraft+passengers. A big trash bag contains a couple lbs of air, yet it feels weightless, because it's immersed in a "sea of air." | |
| Sep 11, 2019 at 18:28 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Sep 11, 2019 at 19:10 | |||||
| Apr 26, 2017 at 16:15 | comment | added | Notts90 | You're intentions are right but you're explication is lacking. | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 15:00 | comment | added | Robert | @DavidRicherby why you say that planes don't fly because of air presure? This answer is based on the Bernoulli's principle. Wikipedia "From Bernoulli's principle, the pressure on the upper surface where the flow is moving faster is lower than the pressure on the lower surface where it is moving slower. This pressure difference creates a net aerodynamic force, pointing upward." | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 11:15 | comment | added | David Richerby | OK but planes don't fly because of air pressure, and planes are much bigger than a piece of paper, so what does this analogy help to explain? | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 9:56 | comment | added | Koyovis | I know that, but I'm not grandma. It just shows what air pressure can do. | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 7:17 | comment | added | David Richerby | Planes don't fly because of fast-moving air above them. In particular, there is just as much fast-moving air below a plane as there is above it. | |
| Apr 26, 2017 at 6:03 | history | answered | Koyovis | CC BY-SA 3.0 |