Forces of flight (continuation)

From Shawn

Hi everyone, welcome to my third and final blog post, in this post I would cover the remaining two forces that affect flight which are drag and thrust. In the last blog we looked at forces that affect the up and down movement of an aircraft, in this blog post we will discuss the forces that would cause an aircraft to move forward or backwards, and these two forces will also affect the speed and acceleration of the vehicle.

Drag: Drag is a frictional force that acts against an object moving through air, it is also commonly known as air resistance, as it opposes an object’s motion in the opposite direction. In order for an aircraft to progress forward, the drag must be smaller than a force acting in the same direction as the object’s motion, this would produce a resultant force forward. Drag is affected by the surface area of an object that is moving through air, the greater the surface area of an object, the greater the drag produced.

Thrust: The force results in a push that moves the aircraft forward, this force also opposes the drag force and if the trust is greater than the drag, the aircraft will progress forward. Most aircrafts acquire their thrust from the jet engines as these produce a large amount of force forward to counter the air resistance acting against the trust for the aircraft to move forward.

This concludes my blog regarding aerodynamics, apologies if the blogs are rather brief, this is largely due to the factor that the topic of aerodynamics is highly complex with several unfamiliar terms and formulas, therefore I have decided to look at it in a more simplified version. I have only focused on the forces in flight because I believe these forces link with the unit of forces and motion that we have studied in physics class already, this would create a clearer understanding and connection between these four forces and the crucial role that they play in the world of aerodynamics.

Thank you for checking out my blog! – Shawn Lai (Year 11 Bako)