We can fly!
Planes are incredible! They can fly thousands of feet into the air and weigh 90,000 pounds! But somehow, they manage to stay up in the sky and transport people, animals, and goods around the world. Have you ever wondered how this is possible?
There are four important things that allow planes to fly: lift, thrust, drag, and weight. One of the parts of a plane that allow for this are its wings. The wings push down on the air and the air pushes back up on the wings, which allows it to stay up in the air without crashing down. This is called lift, the way a plane is constantly pushing down on the air.
Weight is involved because it needs to be evenly distributed across the plane. If you have ever been on a seesaw, you know it needs at least two people for it to work properly, and the weight needs to be spread out. If this doesn’t happen, then the seesaw doesn’t work. Similarly, everything and everyone on a plane needs to be spread out so there isn’t one part of the plane that is too heavy.
Thrust and drag are kind of like opposites. Thrust is the force that moves the plane forward. Most planes use propellers or engines to create thrust. Drag slows the plane down. If you’ve ever been walking outside and the wind blows against you and makes it hard to move forward, you’ve experienced drag! Engineers build planes in a way that there is very little drag when they fly.
