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Questions tagged [aircraft]

Aircraft are man-made vehicles intended to operate while flying through Earth's atmosphere.

288 votes
17 answers
81k views

What really allows airplanes to fly?

What aerodynamic effects actually contribute to producing the lift on an airplane? I know there's a common belief that lift comes from the Bernoulli effect, where air moving over the wings is at ...
David Z's user avatar
  • 76.7k
5 votes
1 answer
3k views

Can a hovering helicopter travel half the globe in 12 hours? [duplicate]

Suppose we have a helicopter that is able to stay stationary in flight for extended periods of time. If such a helicopter stayed at point A in the sky for 12 hours straight, would it reach the other ...
cryptic0's user avatar
  • 161
26 votes
4 answers
224k views

Does the rotation of the earth dramatically affect airplane flight time?

Say I'm flying from Sydney, to Los Angeles (S2LA), back to Sydney (LA2S). During S2LA, travelling with the rotation of the earth, would the flight time be longer than LA2S on account of Los Angeles ...
Ben's user avatar
  • 991
19 votes
7 answers
9k views

How much effect does the Bernoulli effect have on lift?

I understand that the Bernoulli effect is a flawed explanation for the cause of lift, and does not cause much at all, but how much? Is there any experimental data on the force caused by the ...
Meow's user avatar
  • 1,550
25 votes
12 answers
13k views

Why do spacecrafts take off with rockets instead of just ascending like an aircraft until they reach space?

I guess it's not a very educated question, but I never quite understood why spacecrafts have to shoot up and can't just reach space by simply continuing an upwards ascent like an airplane.
clueless's user avatar
  • 251
59 votes
7 answers
9k views

Is the weight of the aircraft flying in the sky transferred to the ground?

Is the weight of the aircraft flying in the sky transferred to the ground? Is the weight of people swimming in the pool also transferred to the ground? How can we prove it?
enbin's user avatar
  • 2,040
14 votes
7 answers
71k views

What will happen if a plane trys to take off whilst on a treadmill?

So this has puzzled me for many a year... I still am no closer to coming to a conclusion, after many arguments that is. I don't think it can, others 100% think it will. If you have a plane trying to ...
Jamie Hutber's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
3k views

Beryllium Vacuum Sphere Boat/Aircraft [closed]

Is it possible to make a solid rigid evacuated "balloon" out of Beryllium or other elements or alloys? The critical buckling pressure at which an evacuated sphere is given as $$ P_1=\frac{2E\cdot\...
user avatar
4 votes
4 answers
12k views

Why do vapour cones form around jet fighters?

Apparently this phenomenon has nothing to do with jets breaking the sound barrier and has something to do with the Prandtl-Glauert singularity as described on Wikipedia. But, the Wikipedia article isn'...
user avatar
3 votes
4 answers
3k views

Are the hypotheses of the Bernoulli equation satisfied for a bird or airplane wing at low Mach number?

A previous question by David Zaslavsky was a request for a broad, "how things work" type of explanation of the lift of an airfoil. The answers given there are enlightening, but don't address a more ...
user avatar
47 votes
2 answers
60k views

How can airplanes fly upside down?

I've read many times, including here on this very site that the commonly known explanation of flight is wrong, and that airplanes can fly because the shape of their wings deflects air down. This makes ...
Javier's user avatar
  • 28.3k
8 votes
3 answers
3k views

Trying to understand jet engine [closed]

I'm trying to understand at a high level how a jet engine works. I want to know if the following summary I wrote is more or less accurate: The jet compresses regular air into a combustion chamber. ...
user1834536's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
520 views

Yet another airplane question

The point of discussion here is the pressure distribution across an airfoil. In order to simplify the question, I'd like to consider an airfoil which looks like a triangle wedge with the blunt face of ...
mcFreid's user avatar
  • 2,627
4 votes
2 answers
305 views

Sonic Boom in Aircraft and Spacecraft

I would like to know why aircraft, and spacecraft produce a double sonic boom on breaking the sound barrier. A while ago, I thought I got it, as there’s a start and finish point to every vehicle. ...
Anonymous's user avatar
4 votes
6 answers
22k views

Coriolis force on bullet vs airplane

Why do airplanes experience negligible Coriolis force while bullets experience the Coriolis force in long range shooting, even though the mass of airplane is much bigger than a bullet?
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