According to Bournoulli's principal it has something to do with the shape of the wing and forcing air molecules to travel further over the longer top surface compared to the lower part of the wing. When the molecules have to travel over a further distance than their friends at the bottom of the wing they spread out, which causes lower pressure...the wing of course, finds it easier to go in the direction of the lower pressure, which is up, which in turn causes lift. There is a cliched joke in aviation that states "it is money that makes airplanes fly!" So beware of asking this question around any of the "geezers" or "airport bums" you may find here in small mid-west airports! Of course, flying isn't cheap...and this has been a stressful element of climbing my Mt. Everest. Today, however, I was proactive and followed one of my tenets of climbing an Everest...if you don't know something ask an expert. So, since my stress was money, I went to my bank...within a few minutes I had everything I needed! The interest rate on my old 2nd mortgage was much higher than the rate at which I could refinance. So, by adding a few years and lowering my interest rate, I found the money for my flying with just a barely noticeable increase in our monthly budget! What a relief and now I have a real chance of summiting again! Now, it is back to actual flying challenges...such as how do I turn on my VOR's? I am looking at this picture of my cockpit trying to figure out the difference between voice and ident...I guess voice is on? Ident I am guessing is just for the morse code identification to make navigation off of a VOR legal? Also, I am hoping it says voice, because you can talk over a VOR to Flight Service or ATC (not sure of the difference totally...maybe FSS is anywhere and ATC is airport specific? Beats me?) Of course, to talk over the VOR, I think I need to move down one of the those 8 silver little knobs to do it...but really I am not sure. Then there is the whole E6-B issue and that I don't know how to figure out what heading I should take on a chart or how to do a time or wind correction heading or whatever it is called...true course vs. mag course or something...and then correcting for magnetic ________....not even sure of the word, but there are these weird lines on charts and you can correct for something that is inherently wrong with compasses...so yeah, my hands are full! The scientific, engineering folks have it made on these particular items...even though I'm no Bournoulli I will get it eventually, but it is going to take a while...and I just need to get comfortable with that.
Monday, July 18, 2011
How do airplanes fly?
According to Bournoulli's principal it has something to do with the shape of the wing and forcing air molecules to travel further over the longer top surface compared to the lower part of the wing. When the molecules have to travel over a further distance than their friends at the bottom of the wing they spread out, which causes lower pressure...the wing of course, finds it easier to go in the direction of the lower pressure, which is up, which in turn causes lift. There is a cliched joke in aviation that states "it is money that makes airplanes fly!" So beware of asking this question around any of the "geezers" or "airport bums" you may find here in small mid-west airports! Of course, flying isn't cheap...and this has been a stressful element of climbing my Mt. Everest. Today, however, I was proactive and followed one of my tenets of climbing an Everest...if you don't know something ask an expert. So, since my stress was money, I went to my bank...within a few minutes I had everything I needed! The interest rate on my old 2nd mortgage was much higher than the rate at which I could refinance. So, by adding a few years and lowering my interest rate, I found the money for my flying with just a barely noticeable increase in our monthly budget! What a relief and now I have a real chance of summiting again! Now, it is back to actual flying challenges...such as how do I turn on my VOR's? I am looking at this picture of my cockpit trying to figure out the difference between voice and ident...I guess voice is on? Ident I am guessing is just for the morse code identification to make navigation off of a VOR legal? Also, I am hoping it says voice, because you can talk over a VOR to Flight Service or ATC (not sure of the difference totally...maybe FSS is anywhere and ATC is airport specific? Beats me?) Of course, to talk over the VOR, I think I need to move down one of the those 8 silver little knobs to do it...but really I am not sure. Then there is the whole E6-B issue and that I don't know how to figure out what heading I should take on a chart or how to do a time or wind correction heading or whatever it is called...true course vs. mag course or something...and then correcting for magnetic ________....not even sure of the word, but there are these weird lines on charts and you can correct for something that is inherently wrong with compasses...so yeah, my hands are full! The scientific, engineering folks have it made on these particular items...even though I'm no Bournoulli I will get it eventually, but it is going to take a while...and I just need to get comfortable with that.
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