The Ground Effect (or Wing in Ground Effect) is a natural phenomenon that occurs due to vortices caused by a difference in pressure between the two sides of a wing. This effect can be very dangerous to inexperienced pilots, but can be utilized by creative engineers.
Nearly all pilots have experienced a strange phenomenon during landing. While everything is happening as it should during decent, a 'cushion' of air gets trapped below the wing during the last few meters to the runway. This throws off the rate of decent and can be dangerous if the pilot has already begun to flare up and decelerate for landing. This means the plane would climb again while slowing down, which would easily lead to a stall.
However, pilots who are aware of this effect can use it to their advantage. Pilots during World War II who had fuel leaks flew scant meters off the ground, conserving fuel until safe territory was reached.
This effect is not really caused by a cushion of air at all, rather, by vortices of air off the tips of the wings.
For a plane to create lift, its wings must create low pressure on top and high pressure on the bottom. However, at the tips of the wings, the high pressure pushes and the low pressure pulls air onto the top of the wing, reducing lift and creating a current flowing to the top. This current remains even after the wing has left the area, producing really awesome vortices.
This flow of air reduces the high pressure and increases the low pressure systems, thus reducing lift and increasing induced drag a great deal. However, once the plane nears the ground (usually half of the distance from the wingtip to fuselage) this flow is significantly reduced. Therefore, the lift is significantly increased. This is the ground effect.
Creative engineers can take advantage of the ground effect and create craft called Ekranoplans. These were gigantic boat planes built by the Soviet Union during the Cold War to transport large amounts of material quickly. These planes could only fly in the ground effect (over water, ice, or flat ground) but were very efficient.
The history of flying dates back as early as the fifteenth century. A Renaissance man named Leonardo da Vinci introduced a flying machine known as the ornithopter. Da Vinci proposed the idea of a machine that had bird like flying capabilities. Today no ornithopters exist due to the restrictions of humans, and that the ornithopters just aren’t practical. During the eighteenth century a philosopher named Sir George Cayley had practical ideas of modern aircraft. Cayley never really designed any workable aircraft, but had many incredible ideas such as lift, thrust, and rigid wings to provide for lift. In the late nineteenth century the progress of aircraft picks up. Several designers such as Henson and Langley, both paved the way for the early 1900’s aircraft design. Two of the most important people in history of flight were the Wright Brothers. The Wright Brothers were given the nickname the “fathers of the heavier than air flying machine” for their numerous flights at their estate in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville and Wilbur Wright created a motor-powered biplane in which they established incredible feats of the time. The Wright Brothers perfected their design of the heavier than air flying ma...
They found that birds tilted their wings for balance and control, and tried to simulate this, developing a concept called “wing warping.” When they added a moveable rudder, the Wright brothers found they had the formula-on December 17, 1903, they succeeded in flying the first controlled flight of a power-driven airplane. Wilbur flew their plane for 59 seconds, at 852 feet, a crazy
It’s been said that, “A pilot’s second greatest thrill is flying. Landing is the first.” Without a doubt, while flying around may be fun, it’s not worth it if the pilot can’t land the plane safely. Flight schools spend approximately 50 percent of ground school time going over landing procedures with soon-to-be pilots. The process is not all that complicated, but every step in the process is important and there is a lot to remember.
... force toward the rear that must be overcome by the forward thrust of the engines. As the angle of attack of an airplane is increased, the plane gains lift, but the lift is limited. As the angle is increased, air turbulence spreads over the wing. Then at a certain critical point (an angle of about 14 degrees in many airplanes), the wing loses lift and the plane stalls, nosing over into a dive.
Introduction to Aerodynamics Aerodynamics is the study of the motion of fluids in the gas state and bodies in motion relative to the fluid/air. In other words, the study of aerodynamics is the study of fluid dynamics specifically relating to air or the gas state of matter. When an object travels through fluid/air there are two types of flow characteristics that happen, laminar and turbulent. Laminar flow is a smooth, steady flow over a smooth surface and it has little disturbance. Intuition would lead to the belief that this type of air flow would be desirable.
There were many milestones in creating “the first airplane.” Many inventors like Joseph Michael and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier who started all the talk that flying is actually possible by launching their first successful hot air balloon in 1783. However, the Wright brothers are accredited with the end result of the airplane’s first successful flight. The Wright Brothers invented and did their testing of their engine propelled airplane in Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. By 1903, the brothers built a biplane named through history as the Wright Flyer (Ethell 19). Through the works of the Wright brothers and other equally important contributors we prove that humans can fly. The entire world was abuzz at what the Wright Brothers had achieved. Finally, after all these years of enviously watching birds fly over their...
Flight is one of the most important achievements of mankind. We owe this achievement to the invention of the airfoil and understanding the physics that allow it to lift enormous weights into the sky.
Lift is a simple concept to grasp, yet the reason it exists is a complex one. To this day there is still great debate over what is the cause of lift. There are several popular explanations given which are commonly found in student textbooks, and even pilot training manuals, yet these popular explanations do not stand up to serious physics analysis. The most common of these arguments is based off of Bernoulli’s Principle.
The hovercraft has seen much non-government work as a hunting vehicle and even a flying machine. Hovercrafts have been able to fly because they have been adapted to weigh less than the force propelling them up and by streamlining the hull to be able to be aerodynamic. Because the force pushing on the ground was greater than the weight of the hovercraft, the hovercraft was able to create tons of lift force with the wings, which thus enabled it to bring its wings off the ground/water and fly into the horizon!
Paper Airplanes, flight at its simplest for humans. As kids, we learned how to build paper airplanes and send them soaring into the sky. We didn't stop to think about why the airplanes where able to fly after the initial thrust we gave them or how they were able to glide for so long afterwards. Ignorance was bliss then, but now we strive to understand how things work. Looking back to the childhood past time of flying paper airplanes, I will try to explain some of the parts that make paper airplanes fly.
Aerodynamics is a branch of dynamics that studies the movement of air and the way solid objects react when they move through the air. Aerodynamics has contributed to the advancing of airplanes and other vehicle technology. In this essay I will be discussing how aerodynamics have improved and changed our world in several great ways. Overall, without aerodynamics, our world today would not be as developed as it is now.
Newton's third law, stated above, explains how the remaining lift force is produced. Lift is generated when the air hits and is deflected off of the underside of the wing. This deflection of air downwards, in turn, causes an upward lift force on the wing since there must be an "equal and opposite reaction force."(Newman) This force accounts for a relatively small portion of the total lift generated for a wing.(JEPPESEN 1-13)
It affects a rubber band airplane with gravity and itself because it helps the plane be balanced on the top and bottom. Bernoulli's Principle and Angle of Attack are both factors in lift. Bernoulli's Principle states: that as there is an increase in velocity the air pressure will decrease. Bernoulli's Principle relates to the lift of an airplane because the velocity on top of the wing moves faster than the underside which creates a vacuum on the top side of the wing and creates lift. The other factor of lift is Angle of Attack which is the angle from horizontal to the chord line. This creates lift because the air hitting the bottom of the airfoil pushes the wing upward. For example, when you stick your hand out of a car window and then tilt it you are changing your Angle of
The humble aeroplane commonly known as the airplane or just plane has become a staple of everyday life for the majority of us. Aeroplanes are used for a vast variety of reasons, the most common being transporting people long distances in a very short amount of time. However, this is not the only role that they play in society, they are used for many other things such as; transportation of goods, recreation, military and research. Aeroplanes are a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust, usually from a jet engine or propeller. This essay will discuss the history of how this technology that we know and love came to fruition and how it reached the market through diffusion.