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few definitions to remember
• Level flight

• Lift

• Weight

• Thrust

• Drag

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 How you Define
Level Flight
There are four forces acting on an airplane in
flight. These are
thrust,
drag,
lift
and weight (gravity).
Figure on next view foil shows the basic directions
of all four forces when an aircraft is in straight and level
flight at a constant speed
For level flight, aircraft axis are parallel to
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universal axis i.e. no rolling, pitching or yawing
How you perceive

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How you perceive

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How you perceive

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Lift
In order for an aircraft to rise into the air, a force must be
created that equals or exceeds the force of gravity. This force
is called lift
Lift is the upward force that holds an aircraft in the air.
Lift can be generated by any part of the airplane, but the
wings generate most of the lift on a normal airliner.

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Lift
• Artificial forces manipulated by pilot.
• Generated through the wings.
• Acts perpendicular to the relative wind and
wingspan.

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Lift
•Lift is exerted through the centre of pressure.
• Opposes weight:
• during level cruise, lift equals weight;
• during climb, lift is greater than weight;
• and during descent, weight is greater that lift.

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Weight
The weight of an airplane is the force, which acts vertically
downward towards the center of the earth and is the result of
gravity on the airplane

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Weight
• Natural (uncontrollable) force generated by gravity (g force)
that acts perpendicular to earth’s surface.
• Weight is exerted through the centre of gravity.
• Opposes lift

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Thrust
Thrust is the force that provides
the forward motion of the
airplane through the air.
There are several ways to
produce this force
jets,
propellers
or rockets
but they all depend on the
principle of pushing air backward
with the object of causing a
reaction, or thrust, in the forward
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Thrust
• Artificial force manipulated by pilot and generated through
engine(s) that acts horizontally, parallel to flight path.
• Opposes drag:
• when airspeed constant, thrust equals drag;
• when airspeed accelerating, thrust is greater than drag;
• and when decelerating, drag is greater than thrust.

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Drag
Every physical body that is propelled through the air will
experience resistance to the air flow. This resistance is
called drag.
Drag is the aerodynamic force that opposes an aircraft's
motion through the air.
It is generated by every part of the airplane (even the
engines!). It is the resistance of the airplane to forward
motion directly opposed to thrust

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Drag
• Natural resistance of aeroplane while moving through air,
partially controlled by pilot.
• A horizontal force, parallel to flight path.
• Opposes thrust.

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Generating Lift
Airfoils
• An airfoil is a structure designed to obtain reaction upon its
surface from the air through which it moves or that moves past
such a structure.
• Viewed as a cross-section: upper surface has more
camber (curve) than lower surface.
• Chord line: straight line from leading edge to trailing edge.
• The airfoil generates lift by two means:
• pressure differential and ram air.
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Bernoulli's principle of pressure
• Three centuries ago, Mr. Daniel Bernoulli, a Swiss mathematician,
explained how the pressure of a moving fluid (liquid or gas) varies with
its speed of motion.

• Specifically, he stated that an increase in the speed of movement or

flow would cause a decrease in the fluid’s pressure.

• This is exactly what happens to air passing over the curved top of
the airplane wing.

• A practical application of Bernoulli’s theorem is the venturi tube. The

venturi tube has an air inlet which narrows to a throat (constricted
point) and an outlet section which increases in diameter toward the rear.

• The diameter of the outlet is the same as that of the inlet. At the
throat, the airflow speeds up and the pressure decreases; at the outlet,
the airflow slows and the pressure increases.

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Generating Lift
Bernoulli's Principle

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 Bernoulli's Principle
(named after Swiss Physicist
Daniel Bernoulli):

• If you ever look closely at the wings of an

airplane from the side, you will notice that they
are not flat.

• The wing has a curved shape to it. This

shape is called an airfoil. Airfoils are specially
designed to produce lift.

• To understand how Bernoulli's principle

causes lift, we must first understand that air
usually presses equally on all sides of an object.

• Suppose that as the plane flies forward, the

approaching air splits up when it hits the leading
(front) edge of the wing and rejoins at the trailing
(back) edge of the wing.
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 Bernoulli's Principle
(named after Swiss Physicist Daniel Bernoulli):

• Suppose that as the plane flies forward, the approaching air splits up
when it hits the leading (front) edge of the wing and rejoins at the trailing
(back) edge of the wing.

• The airfoil shape causes the air to go farther over the top of the wing
than under the bottom, both in the same amount if time.

• This means the air on top of the wing must move faster. When air
speeds up, its pressure gets lower.

• Since the air pressure on top of the wing is lower than the air pressure
on the bottom of the wing, the wing produces lift!

• This phenomenon is called Bernoulli's principle.

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Generating Lift
Newtonian Explanation

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 Newtonian Explanation
• The famous scientist Sir Isaac Newton stated in his
famous third law that ,
"For every action, there is an equal
and opposite reaction."
• Newtonian lift largely depends on the tilt of the wing
or "angle of attack".
• If the leading edge of the wing is pointing upward,
the bottom surface is deflecting oncoming air
downward.
• When this air bounces off the bottom surface of the
wing (action), it pushes the wing upward (reaction)...or
produces lift.
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 NO FLUID, NO LIFT
• Lift is a mechanical force. It is generated by the interaction
and contact of a solid body with a fluid (liquid or gas).

• It is not generated by a force field, in the sense of

a gravitational field, or an electromagnetic field, where one
object can affect another object without being in physical
contact.

• For lift to be generated, the solid body must be in contact

with the fluid: no fluid, no lift. The Space Shuttle does not
stay in space because of lift from its wings but because of
orbital mechanics related to its speed. Space is nearly a
vacuum.

• Without air, there is no lift generated by the wings.

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NO MOTION, NO LIFT
• Lift is generated by the difference in velocity between
the solid object and the fluid.

• There must be motion between the object and the fluid:

no motion, no lift. It makes no difference whether the
object moves through a static fluid, or the fluid moves
past a static solid object.

• Lift acts perpendicular to the motion. Drag acts in the

direction opposed to the motion.

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Lift
In heavier-than-air craft, lift is created by the flow of air over an
airfoil. The shape of an airfoil causes air to flow faster on top than on
bottom. The fast flowing air decreases the surrounding air pressure.

Because the air pressure is greater below the airfoil than above, a
resulting lift force is created. To further understand how an airfoil
creates lift, it is necessary to use two important equations of physical
science.

The pressure variations of flowing air is best represented by

Bernoulli's equation. It was derived by Daniel Bernoulli, a Swiss
mathematician, to explain the variation in pressure exerted by flowing
streams of water. The Bernoulli equation is written as:

where: P = pressure (force exerted divided by area exerted on)

rho = density of the fluid 30
V = velocity of the moving object or fluid
 To understand the Bernoulli equation, one must first
understand another important principle of physical science, the
continuity equation.

It simply states that in any given flow, the density (rho) times
the cross-sectional area (A) of the flow, times the velocity (V) is
constant. The continuity equation is written as:

where: P = pressure
V = velocity
A = cross sectional area of flow

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 Using the Bernoulli equation and the continuity
equation, it can be shown how air flowing over an
airfoil creates lift.
Imagine air flowing over a stationary airfoil,
such as an aircraft wing. Far ahead of the airfoil,
the air travels at a uniform velocity.
To flow past the airfoil, however, it must "split"
in two, part of the flow traveling on top and part
traveling on the bottom.

The shape of a typical airfoil is asymmetrical - its surface area is greater

on the top than on the bottom.
As the air flows over the airfoil, it is displaced more by the top surface
than the bottom. According to the continuity law, this displacement, or loss of
flow area, must lead to an increase in velocity.
Consider an airfoil in a pipe with flowing water. Water will flow faster in a
narrow section of the pipe. The large area of the top surface of the airfoil
narrows the pipe more than the bottom surface does.
Thus, water will flow faster on top than on bottom. The flow velocity is
increased some by the bottom airfoil surface, but considerably less than the
flow on top. 32
 The Bernoulli equation states that an increase in velocity leads to an
decrease in pressure. Thus the higher the velocity of the flow, the lower the
pressure. Air flowing over an airfoil will decrease in pressure.
The pressure loss over the top surface is greater than that of the bottom
surface. The result is a net pressure force in the upward (positive) direction.
This pressure force is lift.
There is no predetermined shape for a wing airfoil, it is designed based
on the function of the aircraft it will be used for.
To aid the design process, engineers use the lift coefficient to measure
the amount of lift obtained from a particular airfoil shape. Lift is proportional
to dynamic pressure and wing area. The lift equation is written as:

L = lift
Cl = lift coefficient
ρ = air density
V = air velocity
A = wing area

where A is wing area and the quantity in parentheses is the dynamic

pressure. In designing an aircraft wing, it is usually advantageous to get the
lift coefficient as high as possible.

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 As an example, let's calculate the lift of an airplane with a wingspan of
40 feet and a chord length of 4 feet (wing area = 160 sq. ft.), moving at
a speed of 100 mph (161 kph) at sea level (that's 147 feet, or 45
meters, per second!). Let's assume that the wing has a constant
cross-section using an NACA 1408 airfoil shape, and that the plane is
flying so that the angle of attack of the wing is 4 degrees.

We know that:

• A = 160 square feet

• ρ = 0.0023769 slugs / cubic foot (at sea level on a standard day)

• V = 147 feet per second

• Cl = 0.55 (lift coefficient for NACA 1408 airfoil at 4 degrees AOA)

So let's calculate the lift:

• Lift = 0.55 x .5 x .0023769 x 147 x 147 x 160

• Lift = 2,260 lbs

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