4 Forces of Flight &
Stability
Forces Acting on an Aircraft
• Thrust
• Drag
• Lift
• Weight (or Load)
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Thrust
• Moves the airplane through the air
• The forward force produced by a powerplant
• In equilibrium Thrust = Drag
• Controlled by pilot via Throttle
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Drag
• Opposes the force of Thrust
• Parallel and in the opposite direction of the relative wind
• Controlled by pilot by “dirtying the airplane”
• Comes in two types:
• Parasitic Drag
• Induced Drag
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Lift
• Result of the dynamic effect of air acting across the airfoil
• Keeps the airplane flying
• Can be controlled by the pilot (to an extent)
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Weight (Load)
• Force of gravity acting upon the mass of the entire system
• Doesn’t always oppose lift
• Load is the opposition of lift
• We’ll come back to this
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Newton’s Laws
• 1st Law: Object at rest, remains at rest, unless outside forces act upon
• 2nd Law: Force = Mass x Acceleration
• 3rd Law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction
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Bernoulli’s Principle
• As the velocity of a fluid increases, its overall pressure decreases
• Think of the following illustration of a tube:
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Bernoulli’s Principle and the Airfoil
• The airfoil is a cut off portion of Bernoulli's tube
• An airfoil is any surface that provides aerodynamic force when
interacting with a stream of air
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Newton’s Third Law
• As air hits wing, wing must go upward while air goes downward
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Labeling the Airfoil
• The Airfoil interacts with the fluid by pushing some upward and some
downward
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Angle of Incidence
• The wing is mounted on the airplane in such a way that the chord line
at the wing tip is more aligned with the longitudinal axis than the root
• Some people refer to this as twist
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Angle of Attack
• An increase of the angle of attack will lead to more lift being
generated
• That is, until the airfoil reaches its “Critical Angle of Attack”
• Any increase further than the Critical AoA, the airfoil will “stall”
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Stall
• A stall is caused by the separation of airflow from the wing’s upper
surface
• The result is the loss in production of lift with a exponentially
proportional increase in drag
• An airfoil will ALWAYS stall when reaching its Critical AoA
• Stalls will always occur regardless of airspeed
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I REPEAT
AIRSPEED HAS NOTHING TO
DO WITH A STALL
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Stall vs. Airspeed
• Airspeed is just a reference to the stall
• Consider a pilot going downward to the earth:
• If the pilot decided to pull back on the yoke to regain level flight too quickly
• He will increase the AoA beyond its critical value
• The pilot will stall until he reduces the AoA and generates airflow over the
wings
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F-16 Stalls at 400 Knots
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv9YC-gaNYo
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Stall Strips
• Two metal strips attached to leading edge
• Disrupt airflow at high AoA
• This causes the wing area behind them to stall before the wingtips
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Pilot Control of Lift
• Change Angle of Attack
• Increase Speed
• High-Lift Devices
• Flaps
• Flaps are used to increase the efficiency of the wing and to decrease stall
speed
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Drag and Lift
• The two are directly proportional
• Any change in lift results in a proportional change in drag
• Likewise any change in drag results in a change of lift
• The Aeronautical Engineer must determine the best use of this
tradeoff
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Flaps and Stalls
• Increase lift (and drag)
• Increases the wing’s camber
• Changes the average chord line
• Both of these together change the angle of attack
• Also remember Newton’s 3rd
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Center of Gravity
• The place where all of the weight is concentrated on the system
• Imagine a string holding up the airplane
• Does it stay straight and level?
• Does it flip forward or backward?
• Does it roll?
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Drag in Context
• We said earlier that drag opposes thrust (or power)
• Comes in the form of Parasitic or Induced
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Parasite Drag
• Caused by the aircraft surface which deflects or interferes with th
smooth airflow around the aircraft
• Divided into three types:
• Form
• Interference
• Skin-friction Drag
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Form Drag
• Results from the turbulent wake from the separation of the surface of
a structure
• Determined by the size and shape of the structure protruding into the
wind
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Interference Drag
• When airflow around one part of the airflow interacts with the airflow
around adjacent parts
• Example: Wings join the fuselage
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Skin Friction Drag
• Caused by the roughness of the surfaces of the airplane
• Even though they appear clean, they may be rough under a
microscope
• Cirrus wing vs. Archer wing
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Induced Drag
• Generated by the airflow circulation around the wing as it creates lift
• “Drag due to lift”
• High pressure underneath joins low pressure above
• Causes a spiraling vortex which trails behind each wing
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Drag Proportionality
• Induced drag is inversely proportional to the square of the speed
• Parasite drag is directly proportional to the square of speed
• Combine Induced and Parasite – Total Drag
• The place where the lowest amount of total drag occurs is known as
L/D Max
• L/D Max is the lowest drag, but the greatest lift – resulting in the
speed of best glide
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Ground Effect
• The result of the earth’s surface altering the airflow patterns about
the airplane
• Airplane may become airborne before reaching its recommended
takeoff speed
• Induced drag decreases and excess speed in the flare may cause
floating
• Happens within one wingspan of the surface
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References
• Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge
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