Comment on Anon isn't fooled by planes
leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 5 days agoFlaps. (As in, the hinged bits at the back edge of the wings, that essentially change the shape of the wing as required, not by flapping the wings; that’d be an ornithopter, as in Dune, not a plane.)
Salamand@lemmy.today 5 days ago
But… right-side-up, the plane fights gravity, has upward lift, according to Bernoulli principle. And even if we angle the flaps to decrease altitude, it’s still not dropping like a rock, the wings still generate lots of upward lift.
400 ton plane, wings w 400 ton lift = flight
Now (before engaging flaps) those same wings upside down would be generating downward “lift” PLUS pull of gravity. So now the 400 ton plane is like an 800 ton plane. Can the flaps alone lift that? Or, said another way, if we gave the plane flat wings, no Bernoulli, and stacked another plane on top of it (to make 800 tons), could it fly right-side-up just using flaps?
ExtraPartsLeft@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I’m not a geologist, but I think the planes that typically fly upside down, are significantly lighter than 400 tons.