Questions tagged [lift]
The force acting on an aircraft in opposition to gravity which keeps the aircraft in the air.
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How large do wings have to be to create lift?
How much lift is needed to get an aircraft in the air? Is there a specific formula? And also what wing shapes offer different types of lift? I.e a delta wing formation.
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Can an airplane propeller become supersonic?
Is it possible for an aircraft propeller to become supersonic?
I am not referring as for the aircraft, only the rotating blade.
I know it is extremely unlikely for a propeller plane to go supersonic, ...
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If in a coordinated turn, the horizontal lift vector is equal to the Centrifugal force. Then how is the aircraft still turning?
Image source
How does the Aircraft continue to turn when the both the Horizontal component of lift and the centrifugal force are equal?
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How is the wing area of an airplane determined?
Picture source is from here.
Here are wing areas of several airplanes. As we can see the Spitfire, B747-400, and Mirage 2000, their wing area are not rectangular. The line drawn from left side to the ...
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How to calculate lift and drag coefficients of an airfoil with slotted flaps?
I am doing a project attempting to determine the increase in lift and drag coefficients of an airfoil as the angle of its flap increases. In my research, I have found the thin airfoil with flap ...
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How does increasing the angle of attack increase the lift?
When the pitch of a plane increases (facing upwards), it has a positive angle of attack, and when it decreases to face downwards, it has a negative angle of attack.
Increasing the angle of attack ...
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How does the lift force stop increasing itself after a certain point?
I am currently trying to create a basic flight simulator and am very confused by the concept of lift. This is the equation of lift shown below that I found on the internet.
$$
F_l = \frac{1}{2} \rho v^...
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Why does a flat plate create less lift than an airfoil at the same AoA?
This picture of the lift curve slopes for four-digit NACA airfoils and a flat plate is from another question on this topic. It shows that at the same positive AoA, a flat plate generates less lift ...
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Does the CH-47 Chinook generate differential yaw as a side effect of generating differential lift?
I have been reading up on the controls of the CH-47 Chinook. I understand how yaw movement is created not by counter torque but by opposite cyclic on the front and back rotors. What I'm wondering ...
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How does wing sweep impact lift? [duplicate]
Given that swept wings (according to a google search) decrease lift, how much is lift affected? Why are they so commonly used in aircraft nowadays, like the SU-27, and subsonic aircraft like the ...
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Sluggish response to transients in very high L/D ratio airfoils
A sailplane has very high aspect-ratio wings and can have a glide ratio up to 70:1 (the wing L/D ratio is even higher since the fuselage adds drag).
The flow at such high L/D ratios for such long, ...
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Forces acting on ram air parachute (for pulling ships)
I recently stumpled across this question about the ram-air parachutes for use in pulling ships.
In this answer it is stated that the parachute needs to travel perpendicularly to the ship's motion in ...
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Why a kite flying at 1000 feet in "figure-of-eight loops" serves to "multiply the pulling effect of the airflow" on the ship to which it is attached?
In CNN's June 30, 2023 Giant kites could pull cargo ships across the ocean – and slash their carbon emissions
“What differentiates it from other wind solutions,” says Bernatets1, “is that the wing is ...
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Helicopter blades flapping with the cyclic – can you help with the explanation?
I am now reading books about helicopter aerodynamics. And I have one question about blades flapping.
If you push forward on the cyclic, the swashplate will tilt forward and will set the maximum pitch ...
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If an aerofoil is placed in a narrow wind tunnel, how will that affect the lift it produces?
This is NACA 0000 aerofoil:
This is just a straight line - roughly what a paper plane's aerofoil section looks like (I chose this aerofoil for its simplicity). If we put this aerofoil in a wind ...
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glide ratio of an airplane formula
Good morning everyone, I found out that the glide ratio of an airplane can be calculated by this formula : 1/tan(y) considering y the angle formed by its nose and an horizontal line.
Check this photo :...
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How come deflected flaps cause a nose-up pitching moment in high-wing aircrafts and a nose-down pitching moment in low-wing aircraft?
I imagine that the increased downwash due to the new camber of a high-wing aircraft causes a down-force on the horizontal stabilizer which in turn causes a nose-up pitching moment. However, I read ...
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Am I correct about how airships control their altitude?
I have read about how airships work, especially about how they control their altitude. Because what I understand from readings about the Zeppelin airships is that they were able to perform long range ...
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Can anyone explain lift before the experiment?
The sensors on the wing tell me lower pressure above the wing, the smoke visualization tells me the air stream is faster when flowing over the curve. But can anyone tell me why they behave like that ...
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What are the complete assumptions and final conclusions from 'Thin Airfoil Theory' in aerodynamics?
I possess expertise in the field of aerospace structures, however I have recently been assigned an 'Aeroelasticity' analysis job at my workplace. In an effort to imbibe the fundamental knowledge which'...
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Trying to understand this pressure distribution over an aerofoil?
can someone please help me understand why the pressure is like that over the top and bottom surface of this aerofoil please?
Also, what do the arrows point out mean? Why are the front and end ones ...
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How does increasing camber increase lift coefficient?
How does increasing the camber of an airfoil (like the NACA 0018) increase its coefficient of lift?
You're just curving the airfoil; I don't see how that increases lift for a given angle of attack?
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Why does pressure difference between top and bottom surface of wings increase as speed increases?
We observe that lift force increases as speed increases on aircraft wings. Theoretically, there must be increase in pressure difference between top and bottom surface of wings.
What I don't understand ...
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Can I identify wingtip stall by looking at the lift distribution?
I'm projecting a wing in XFLR5. The lift at the tip of the wing looks like it's dropping very quickly close to the stall angle, so I think there may be wingtip stall, however, is there any way I can ...
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How to compute the direction of the vector perpendicular to the wing?
I'm trying to compute the direction of the vector that extends perpendicularly up from the top of the aircraft's surface.
Is there a way to compute the vector's 3-dimensional parameters in Cartesian ...
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What flaps are used for, if the aircraft has already landed? [duplicate]
When watching the below clip in the final approach sequence we can clearly hear setting flabs to 1, 2 and then to maximum.
At 12:05 into the clip, when fully landed ...
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Impact to lift curve slope for a tapered wing with only trailing edge sweep?
I'd like to use a tapered wing with 0 deg leading edge sweep and 12 deg trailing edge sweep as shown below for my RC model. I understand that lift curve slope, a, is reduced for wings with leading-...
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How to determine the required twist in the Bell Shaped Lift Distribution (BSLD)
I'm doing a research about flying wings and BSLD and I'm having trouble to find the required twist. I'm using the equation L = ( 1 – x^2 )^3/2 to find the local load (Bowers, 2016). But how can I ...
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Why should the leading edge of the horizontal tail be lower than the trailing edge? [duplicate]
As mentioned in this answer: https://drones.stackexchange.com/a/2564/5088
The leading edge of the tail should be lower than its trailing edge, providing some "down force" in flight.
I am ...
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What makes the MV-22 has lift thrust and its disk loading is so high?
Image source:
The above is comparison table of several rotating wing aircraft's disk loading, especially I highlighted the disk loading of MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor versus CH-47 Chinook helicopter. As in ...
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Can wingtip vortices formed around an unswept wing produce vortex lift?
Vortex lift is a kind of aerodynamic lift force due to vortices formed along the leading edge of highly-swept (usually 60 degrees of swept angle or higher) wings at high angles of attack. The "...
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Is there a formula for calculating lift coefficient based on the NACA airfoil?
Are there any formulas that can be used to calculate this?
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Is increase in lift allways follwed by increase in drag and vice versa?
We look at lift,drag and L/D at multi element wing with slots and same wing shape just without slots.
wing without slots:
Completly top side is stalled, so here is all low pressure(blue at picture),...
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What should be the size of a lifting body aircraft that can carry 5 passengers (385kg/850lbs)?
So I just want to know the size of an aircraft with a lifting body that would fly at low altitudes (around 40 meters/100 feet), and at low speeds (maximum 200 km/h 124 mph). But I don't know if these ...
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How is lift produced when the aircraft is going down steeply?
If a positive angle of attack (AoA) is needed to produce lift, then how is it created when a plane is in a 30 degree nose low dive?
How does it not stall? At this attitude the AoA has to be negative, ...
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Does Cd number change at different speeds during wind tunnel testing?
When meassure Cd or Cl of airplane/car in wind tunnel, does number change at different speeds, for example at 100km/h compare to 250km/h?
If yes,how much?
I know from theory that coefficents change ...
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How pitch is changed in harrier jet(vertical landing and take off aircraft)
How pitch is changed in harrier jet and lift is achieved?Is it same principle like conventional fighter jets like f16 etc? What about drones quadcopter etc do they also follow same principle?
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Evaluating maximum TAS for a given available power
This is the original problem:
A turboprop aircraft with a weight of 162 kN is equipped with a power plant with a power derating model described by $\frac{P_A}{P_{A,0}} = 0.9\sigma^{0.75}$, where $P_{...
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Will ice on an airfoil work as a vortex generator?
Vortex generators are little fans that generate vortex to attach flow to an airfoil and delay stall. If frost or ice are formed on an airfoil, technically they also generate turbulence and vortex,I am ...
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What are some features of a wing, which effects its lift coefficient other than its sectional view? [duplicate]
What geometrical features of a lifting surface apart from which airfoil it has, I mean the ones visible from the top and front view of a wing (for ex: its span, AR, sweep, dihedral etc.) effects its ...
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What causes lift?
Now this seems to be the question of the ages, and various questions on this site regards it.
The often told description of lift is that it is due to air traveling faster over the wing than under it, ...
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How to choose an attack angle?
I'm writing a little piece of code for preliminary design that can calculate the ideal wing area for a given load, cruise speed and aspect ratio or span. It seemingly works well on the A380 data:
<...
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2D to 3D Non-Elliptical Lift Curve Slope Correction Factor Reference
I'm working on automating some aerodynamic calculations for a particular multidisciplinary design tool and in the course of setting it up I ran across this formula from the input theory manual
$$
{CL_\...
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How does Condensation Affect Lift?
Here are two pictures of condensation happening above the wing:
The condensation happens because the pressure drops above the wing which in turn causes the temperature to drop. When the temperature ...
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What methods are used to calculate the geometry needed to obtain a bell-shaped lift distribution?
In aerodynamics, what methods do people use to calculate the geometry of a wing (and body) needed to obtain a bell shaped lift distribution? Please go into as much detail as possible for a stack ...
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How to calculate lift and drag of commerical aircraft in different phases of flight?
What is the best way to mathematically calculate values of lift and drag forces, in different phases of flight: takeoff, climb, cruise, descent, and approach?
Edit: I have the idea of calculating the ...
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Why does the leading edge vortex accelerate the flow downward?
I know leading edge vortices over delta wings make more lift. I understood that the core of the vortex sheet is low, so there is suction flow that makes lift. But, I can't understand how a leading ...
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Why does lift coefficient not change with velocity in inviscid flow?
Why exactly is lift coefficient constant with velocity in inviscid flow?
(For a given angle of attack, 2D section and fluid, pre-stall etc)
Does it come out in the derivation of lift coefficient or ...
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What does deploying landing flaps do to the (L/D)max and minimum drag speed of an airplane?
I thought that deploying flaps will increase both the drag and lift, thus increasing L/D ratio? But do they increase proportionately? And how exactly does that correlate with the increase/decrease of ...
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Converting 2d Cl to 3d [closed]
I am trying to convert 2d Cl data obtained from javafoil for a NACA 4412 into 3d data to be used for analysis of the airfoil, but cant find any equations online
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