Monday, January 11, 2016

This Is An Airplane

This Is A Airplane
  The airplane is one of the most amazing inventions in the world. Since the Wright Brothers flew their airplane back in 1903, we've made many advances in our aviation technology. Airports have grown bigger and better. We have learned how to control traffic, and mastered moving thousands of people everyday. Airplanes have grown to be more fuel efficient. We send humans zooming through the sky faster than the speed of sound. We have made jumbo jets the size of whales fly across the sky. Yes the world would not be the way it is now without airplanes.


  The aircraft I will use in my basic lessons will be in the Cessna 172 Skyhawk. The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is probably one of the best training aircraft, and one of the most popular. The C172(Cessna 172 Skyhawk) is a single engine, light weight, high wing aircraft, with 4 seats. More C172's have been built then any other aircraft, with a record of over 43000 made. The C172 has a cruise speed of 140 mph, and a range around 696 miles. The picture above shows the stunning look of this marvelous aircraft.

  There are three different motions, or axis that an airplane can make. Pitch, yaw, roll. To help us understand this principle, we are going to use a car to help us out. A car has one motion/axis. It can turn Left or Right. We call this motion yaw. A car doesn't have any other axis to rotate on, but an airplane does. Airplanes have pitch, which makes it possible to move up or down. Last thing they have is roll. Roll makes the airplane roll to either side, making it easier to turn the plane. One thing I want to point out is, yaw on airplanes doesn't work exactly like cars. Airplanes can fly pretty fast, and because there not on the ground, there's not much friction, so it makes it hard to turn left or right like a car. In order for an aircraft to make a turn at such high speeds, it must use all three axis. Later you will learn how to use all three of these motions to make a good turn.

  Most airplanes have Wheels just like cars. Airplanes need wheels to help gain speed on the ground before it takes off. The wheels on an airplane are called the landing gear, because there main job is to help you land.

 Airplanes have a propeller, and sometimes multiple propellers. Propellers are used for pulling the aircraft through the air. Cars don't need propellers because they use wheels that are powered by an engine, and the wheels use friction to push off from the ground beneath them, but when airplanes are in the air, they don't have any ground to push off, so that's why propellers are so important. 


  The most important part of any airplane is the wing. The wing is what makes the airplane gain lift and fly. Wings come in many different shapes, but they all use the same principle to obtain lift. An airfoil is a simple shape of the wing the creates lift. In this diagram you will see that that the moving air that goes over the wing travels at much higher speeds, and the air that moves under the wing travels much slower. This gives the top of the wing an area of low pressure, and the bottom an area of high pressure, making lift. The faster you go in your airplane, the harder and faster the air flow will move across the wing, and the faster the air flow, the more lift you gain.

 Airplanes are amazing machines that serve different purposes. There are many different types, like a stunt plane, a fighter jet, or a commercial plane. But they all share one goal, to get you from the ground to the sky.