Are you able to answer this students question? Why *can* airplanes fly upside down if this is how an airfoil works.
Or better yet: Why does the air above the airfoil have to meet up with the air below the airfoil?
XKCD: Airfoil
4 thoughts on “XKCD: Airfoil”
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I know this is half jokingly so here’s the serious answer: I think they use symmetrical airfoils.
and the air above has to meet the air below because its just a law of conservation of mass…mass flow rate in = mass flow rate out :P
now that better answer: they can fly upside down because their wing is installed upside down. and it has to meet because they like each other..i dont know..that wasn’t very creative
Ramiel,
You have the right spirit though :P
Hum.
Well, a plane can fly upside-down because of angle of attack. If the oncoming air hits the wing at a sharp enough angle it will create lift inspite of the airfoil.
The air moves faster and has a lower pressure over the top of an airfoil because of Bernoulli’s principle (not that I know how that works).
The “conservation of mass” if an oversimplified model and the air doesn’t need to meet up at the tailing edge. In fact, I think the air moving over the top moves much faster than the air below which creates the downwash.
http://amasci.com/wing/airfoil.html