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Lift conventionally acts in an upward direction in order to counter the force of gravity, but it is defined to act perpendicular to the flow and therefore can act in any direction. If the surrounding fluid is air, the force is called an aerodynamic force. In water or any other liquid, it is called a hydrodynamic force.
Aerodynamic force. The aerodynamic force is the resultant vector from adding the lift vector, perpendicular to the flow direction, and the drag vector, parallel to the flow direction. Forces on an aerofoil. In fluid mechanics, an aerodynamic force is a force exerted on a body by the air (or other gas) in which the body is immersed, and is due ...
In flight a powered aircraft can be considered as being acted on by four forces: lift, weight, thrust, and drag. [1] Thrust is the force generated by the engine (whether that engine be a jet engine, a propeller, or -- in exotic cases such as the X-15-- a rocket) and acts in a forward direction for the purpose of overcoming drag. [2]
For example, a pitching moment comes from a force applied at a distance forward or aft of the cg, causing the aircraft to pitch up or down. A fixed-wing aircraft increases or decreases the lift generated by the wings when it pitches nose up or down by increasing or decreasing the angle of attack (AOA). The roll angle is also known as bank angle ...
An aircraft in slow flight at a high angle of attack will generate an aerodynamic reaction force with a high drag component. By increasing the speed and reducing the angle of attack, the lift generated can be held constant while the drag component is reduced. At the optimum angle of attack, total drag is minimised.
Supersonic airfoils. A supersonic airfoil is a cross-section geometry designed to generate lift efficiently at supersonic speeds. The need for such a design arises when an aircraft is required to operate consistently in the supersonic flight regime. Supersonic airfoils generally have a thin section formed of either angled planes or opposed arcs ...
An aircraft can stay aloft only by constantly traveling forward relative to the air (rather than the ground), so that the wings can generate aerodynamic lift. The thinner the air, the faster the plane must go to generate enough lift to stay up. [16] At very high speeds, centrifugal force (Kepler force) contributes to maintaining altitude.
Aircraft flight control surfaces are aerodynamic devices allowing a pilot to adjust and control the aircraft's flight attitude. Development of an effective set of flight control surfaces was a critical advance in the development of aircraft. Early efforts at fixed-wing aircraft design succeeded in generating sufficient lift to get the aircraft ...