Have you ever thrown a Frisbee®? It flies because of four forces.

These same four forces help an airplane fly. The four forces are lift,
thrust, drag, and weight. As a Frisbee flies through the air, lift holds it up. You gave the Frisbee thrust with your arm. Drag from the air
made the Frisbee slow down. Its weight brings the Frisbee back to Earth again.

You see them everyday: airplanes, jets, and helicopters, soaring, zooming, and even roaring through the skies. We may take flight for
granted; yet, knowing the science behind it gives us a better understanding of the marvels of air travel.

Wings keep an airplane up in the air, but the four forces are what make this happen. They push a plane up, down, forward, or slow it
down.

   

 Thrust is a force that moves an aircraft in the direction of the motion. It is created with a propeller, jet engine,
or rocket. Air is pulled in and then pushed out in an opposite direction. One example is a household fan.

   
 Drag is the force that acts opposite to the direction of motion. It tends to slow an object. Drag is caused by
friction and differences in air pressure. An example is putting your hand out of a moving car window and feeling it pull
back.

   
 Weight is the force caused by gravity.

   
 Lift is the force that holds an airplane in the air. The wings create most of the lift used by airplanes.

The way the four forces act on the airplane make the plane do different things. Each force has an opposite force that works against it.
Lift works opposite of weight. Thrust works opposite of drag. When the forces are balanced, a plane flies in a level direction. The plane
goes up if the forces of lift and thrust are more than gravity and drag. If gravity and drag are bigger than lift and thrust, the plane goes
down. Just as drag holds something back as a response to wind flow, lift pushes something up. The air pressure is higher on the
bottom side of a wing, so it is pushed upward.

A force may be thought of as a push or pull in a specific direction. A force is a vector quantity so a
force has both a magnitude and a direction. When describing forces, we have to specify both the
magnitude and the direction. This slide shows the forces that act on an airplane in flight.

Weight

Weight is a force that is always directed toward the center of the earth. The magnitude of the weight
depends on the mass of all the airplane parts, plus the amount of fuel, plus any payload on board
(people, baggage, freight, etc.). The weight is distributed throughout the airplane. But we can often
think of it as collected and acting through a single point called the center of gravity. In flight, the
airplane rotates about the center of gravity.

Flying encompasses two major problems; overcoming the weight of an object by some opposing
force, and controlling the object in flight. Both of these problems are related to the object's weight and
the location of the center of gravity. During a flight, an airplane's weight constantly changes as the
aircraft consumes fuel. The distribution of the weight and the center of gravity also changes. So the
pilot must constantly adjust the controls to keep the airplane balanced, or trimmed.

Lift

To overcome the weight force, airplanes generate an opposing force called lift. Lift is generated by
the motion of the airplane through the air and is an aerodynamic force. "Aero" stands for the air, and
"dynamic" denotes motion. Lift is directed perpendicular to the flight direction. The magnitude of the
lift depends on several factors including the shape, size, and velocity of the aircraft. As with weight,
each part of the aircraft contributes to the aircraft lift force. Most of the lift is generated by the wings.
Aircraft lift acts through a single point called the center of pressure. The center of pressure is defined
just like the center of gravity, but using the pressure distribution around the body instead of the weight
distribution.

The distribution of lift around the aircraft is important for solving the control problem. Aerodynamic
surfaces are used to control the aircraft in roll, pitch, and yaw.

Drag

As the airplane moves through the air, there is another aerodynamic force present. The air resists the
motion of the aircraft and the resistance force is called drag. Drag is directed along and opposed to
the flight direction. Like lift, there are many factors that affect the magnitude of the drag force
including the shape of the aircraft, the "stickiness" of the air, and the velocity of the aircraft. Like lift,
we collect all of the individual components' drags and combine them into a single aircraft drag
magnitude. And like lift, drag acts through the aircraft center of pressure.

Thrust

To overcome drag, airplanes use a propulsion system to generate a force called thrust. The direction
of the thrust force depends on how the engines are attached to the aircraft. In the figure shown
above, two turbine engines are located under the wings, parallel to the body, with thrust acting along
the body centerline. On some aircraft, such as the Harrier, the thrust direction can be varied to help
the airplane take off in a very short distance. The magnitude of the thrust depends on many factors
associated with the propulsion system including the type of engine, the number of engines, and the
throttle setting.

For jet engines, it is often confusing to remember that aircraft thrust is a reaction to the hot gas
rushing out of the nozzle. The hot gas goes out the back, but the thrust pushes towards the front.
Action <--> reaction is explained by Newton's Third Law of Motion.

The motion of the airplane through the air depends on the relative strength and direction of the forces
shown above. If the forces are balanced, the aircraft cruises at constant velocity. If the forces are
unbalanced, the aircraft accelerates in the direction of the largest force.

Note that the job of the engine is just to overcome the drag of the airplane, not to lift the airplane. A 1
million pound airliner has 4 engines that produce a grand total of 200,000 of thrust. The wings are
doing the lifting, not the engines. In fact, there are some aircraft, called gliders that have no engines
at all, but fly just fine. Some external source of power has to be applied to initiate the motion
necessary for the wings to produce lift. But during flight, the weight is opposed by both lift and drag.
Paper airplanes are the most obvious example, but there are many kinds of gliders. Some gliders are
piloted and are towed aloft by a powered aircraft, then cut free to glide for long distances before
landing. During reentry and landing, the Space Shuttle is a glider; the rocket engines are used only to
loft the Shuttle into space.

Lift: is produced by a lower pressure created on the upper surface of an airplane's wings compared to the pressure on the wing's lower surfaces,causing the wing to be LIFTED upward. The special shape
of the airplane wing (airfoil) is designed so that air flowing over it will have to travel a greater distance and faster resulting in a lower pressure area (see illustration) thus lifting the wing upward. Lift is
that force which opposes the force of gravity (or weight).

 
Lift depends upon (1) shape of the airfoil (2) the angle of attack (3) the area of the surface exposed to the airstream (4) the square of the air speed (5) the air density.

 
Weight: The weight acts vertically downward from the center of gravity (CG) of the airplane.
Thrust: is defined as the forward direction pushing or pulling force developed by aircraft engine . This includes reciprocating engines , turbojet engines, turboprop engines.

 
Drag: is the force which opposes the forward motion of airplane. specifically, drag is a retarding force acting upon a body in motion through a fluid, parallel to the direction of motion of a body. It is the
friction of the air as it meets and passes over an airplane and its components. Drag is created by air impact force, skin friction, and displacement of the air.
 
Aircraft Flight Control
An airplane is equipped with certain fixed and movable surfaces or airfoil which provide for stability and control during flight. These are illustrated in the picture.

 
Each of the named of the airfoil is designed to perform a specific function in the flight of the airplane. The fixed airfoils are the wings, the vertical stabilizer, and the horizontal stabilizer. The movable
airfiols called control surfaces, are the ailerons, elevators, rudders and flaps.The ailerons, elevators, and rudders are used to "steer" the airplane in flight to make it go where the pilot wishes it to go. The
flaps are normally used only during landings and extends some during takeoff.
Aileron: may be defined as a movable control surface attached to the trailing edge of a wing to control an airplane in the roll, that is , rotation about the longitudinal axis.
Elevator: is defined as a horizontal control surface, usually attached to the trailing edge of horizontal stabilizer of an airplane, designed to apply a pitching movement to the airplane. A pitching
movement is a force tending to rotate the airplane about the lateral axis,that is nose up or nose down.
Rudder: is a vertical control surface usually hinged to the tail post aft of the vertical stabilizer and designed to apply yawing movement to the airplane, that is to make it turn to the right or left about the
vertical axis.
 

 
Wing Flaps: are hinged or sliding surfaces mounted at the trailing edge of wings and designed to increase the camber of the wings. The effect is to increase the lift of the wings.

As a plane flies forward, the curved upper part of the wing lowers the air pressure directly
above it, so it moves upward.
Why does this happen? As air flows over the curved upper surface, its natural inclination
is to move in a straight line, but the curve of the wing pulls it around and back down. For
this reason, the air is effectively stretched out into a bigger volume—the same number of
air molecules forced to occupy more space—and this is what lowers its pressure. 

How airfoil wings generate lift#2: The curved shape of a wing creates an area of low
pressure up above it (red), which generates lift. The low pressure makes air accelerate
over the wing, and the curved shape of the wing (and the higher air pressure well above
the altered air stream) forces that air into a powerful downwash, also pushing the plane
up. This animation shows how different angles of attack (the angle between the wing and
the incoming air) change the low pressure region above a wing and the lift it makes. When
a wing is flat, its curved upper surface creates a modest region of low pressure and a
modest amount of lift (red). As the angle of attack increases, the lift increases dramatically
too—up to a point, when increasing drag makes the plane stall (see below). If we tilt the
wing downward, we produce lower pressure underneath it, making the plane fall.

1. Weight is the force of gravity. It acts in a downward direction—

toward the center of the Earth.
2. Lift is the force that acts at a right angle to the direction of
motion through the air. Lift is created by differences in air
pressure.
3. Thrust is the force that propels a flying machine in the direction
of motion. Engines produce thrust.
4. Drag is the force that acts opposite to the direction of motion.
Drag is caused by friction and differences in air pressure.

Let's summarize what we've learned:

 Increasing the angle of attack will increase the lift.

 Increasing the thickness will increase the lift.
 Increasing the area will increase the lift.
 Increasing the altitude will decrease the lift.
 Increasing the airspeed will increase the lift.
  Increasing the camber will increase the lift.
 A symmetric airfoil, or even a flat plate at angle of attack, will generate lift.
 Lift appears to be a very strong function of the airfoil camber.\

While an airplane wing is one of the most popular examples of the Bernoulli effect, many
discussions allege that the Bernoulli lift is actually a small part of the lift force which allows the
aircraft to fly. You can argue that the main lift comes from the fact that the wing is angled slightly
upward so that air striking the underside of the wing is forced downward. The Newton's 3rd
law reaction force upward on the wing provides the lift. Increasing the angle of attack can increase
the lift, but it also increases drag so that you have to provide more thrust with the aircraft engines.

Some pilots have been known to get a bit testy about their lift being attributed to the Bernoulli
effect, and reply "Then how do you suppose we can fly the plane upside down?". It looks a bit
tricky, but you can adjust the attitude of the aircraft when upside down to give the proper angle of
attack to get lift.

The discussions of "Bernoulli vs Newton" continue, but aerodynamicists such as Eastlake take the
point of view that they are ultimately equivalent models and that neither is incorrect. In his wind
tunnel testing at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University,
the Bernoulli approach is preferred because it can be tested more readily with the type of
measurements which can be made in a wind tunnel. Making numerous point measurements around
the airfoil and summing (integrating) them in the context of a Bernoulli model gives consistent
modeling of observed lift forces.

The Angle of Attack is the angle at which relative wind meets an Aerofoil. It is the angle
formed by the Chord of the aerofoil and the direction of the relative wind or the vector
representing the relative motion between the aircraft and the atmosphere.

The angle of attack can be simply described as the difference between where a wing is
pointing and where it is going.

Another explanation of lift is by the famous law— Newtons Third Law of Motion which states that “For
every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”  If we see the airfoil we will see that the upper
surface is curved downwards. As I told previously that the air of the upper surface changes its speed. It not
only changes its speed, but also its direction. Since the upper surface is curved downwards, the high speed
accelerated air sir also moves downwards. Due to this, the air of the bottom surface also strikes the high
speed air and moves downwards. This has an opposite reaction on the airfoil, pushing it upwards. This is
called Lift.

Drag is the force of flight that pushes airplanes back, or acts against the direction of
motion. Drag is important to an airplane because it causes a plane to slow down.

Drag is the force that pushes planes backwards and slows them down as they fly
through the air. Many current innovations in flight are focused on decreasing drag on
planes as much as possible. With less drag, planes are able to achieve faster speeds with
the same amount of thrust as they had before. Technically, drag is not necessary for
flight to be achieved. However, it is impossible to completely eliminate drag during flight
without eliminating air. Air is needed to generate lift, so although drag is not completely
necessary for flight, an airplane that achieve’s lift will always experience some form of
drag.

Maintaining a steady flight requires a balance, often described as an equilibrium of all

the forces acting upon an airplane.

f lift becomes greater than weight, then the plane will accelerate upward.

If the weight is greater than the lift, then the plane will accelerate downward.

When the thrust becomes greater than the drag, the plane will accelerate forward.

If drag becomes greater than the thrust a deceleration will occur.

Acceleration is best explained by using Newton's Second Law of Motion.