Back to the Basics: Thrust, Lift, and Drag

Laversab Aviation is among one of the most highly regarded suppliers of pitot static testers and data test sets - sine qua non in the aviation industry. Flight is among one of man's most inimitable discoveries. Other than electricity, most other discoveries pale in comparison. It is a great shame that the majority of men in the 21st century, despite access to a bevy of educational resources thanks to the internet, have little idea how flight works - what makes an airplane, something so big and heavy, get up and stay in the air. The many scientific minds at Laversab have decided to be that educational resource. With the help of this article, it is our goal to educate even the most scientifically illiterate what makes airplanes fly. To do this, basic core concepts must be explicated. These basic concepts include: thrust, lift, and drag, among many others. This first article is going to focus on these three concepts. Following articles will introduce more complex and abstruse concepts - concepts which can only be understood if one has a strong, basic understanding of the primary concepts.

Once one has explicitly understood the axiomatic concepts on which all other knowledge rests - those being: the primacy of existence, of consciousness, and of identity - man can look to the world, to extrospect, and make an effort, through logic and empirical observation, to understand the nature of reality. Man sees that some things, which he calls birds, have the capacity to fly - to travel by way of air. For centuries, man has wanted to perform this act of flight. Only now can he say he has been successful in doing so. But what made him successful? What knowledge has man gleaned to make it happen?

Thrust, life, gravity, and drag - these are the four concepts which man has developed as a result of empirical observation and arduous inductive reasoning. The first two - thrust and lift - assist flight. The other two - gravity and drag - resist flight. All four of these concepts are classified as forces. In physics, a force is any interaction which changes the motion of a physical entity.

When an aircraft is flying in the air, straight and level, all four of the aforementioned forces (thrust, lift, gravity, and drag) are balanced and in equilibrium.

Thrust

Engines create thrust. When a propeller forces air through the engine, the airplane or aircraft moves forward. As the wings cut through the air in front of the aircraft, lift is created. This is the force pushing an aircraft up into the sky.

Lift

When air flows both over and under the surface of an aircraft's wings, you have lift. The wing is designed such that the top surface is longer than the bottom surface. This makes the air move faster along the top of the wing, thus creating a difference in air pressure above and below - a phenomenon known as the Bernoulli effect. The pressure pushing up is far greater than the downward pressure. This creates lift.

Drag

That phenomenon which opposes thrust is known as drag. Even though it generally occurs because of air resistance as air flows around the wing, several different types of drag exist. Drag is created as a result of simple skin friction as air molecules stick to the surface of the wings.

Gravity

Gravity is a force of acceleration on an object. The Earth exerts this natural force on all objects. It is a constant force that always acts downwards.

Laversab Aviation

Thanks to hard work and dedication, Laversab Aviation has emerged as one of the foremost suppliers of Pitot Static Testers and Data Test Sets in the world. The company's accumulative knowledge in the field of Aviation is incredibly expansive and prodigious, making them a primary source for those in search of educational resources on the subject of Aviation.