Lift Senario

[conor]

Hey Captain,
It's a pleasure to read all your very insightful posts. I thought I could ask you to explain in more detail about a situation my friend who is a pilot explained to me. I can't remember everything, but he said that if a plane is losing altidude than it will naturally speed up which can also create lift. So I thought this was helpful to know, because it made me realize that a plane is not going to go straight down when it loses all power, which is extremely rare. Rather it can glide for a long distance.

[Kimmar]

I'm not a pilot, but your friend is right. Your plane losing altitude would pick up airspeed, and with airspeed you create more lift...So no, it can't fall like a rock.

Ever watch a glider? They make it back to the airport using only airspeed and lift, (and good piloting, it goes without saying!)

The space shuttle glides to a landing every time too, as it has no fuel to propel it's engines once it leaves orbit. Think about that. That *huge* airship *glides* all the way from orbit to touchdown. It's designed to do it, and so is any aircraft that you will ever fly in. The are all essentially gliders with engines.

[Captain Hutch]

Hi Conor,

Your friend is correct with one basic caveat: that the airflow over the wings is still creating lift, i.e. that the wing is not in a stalled condition. One of the basics of flying is to teach the student how to recognize a stall and more importantly how to recover from a stalled condition. Recovery techniques involve lowering the nose of the aircraft which may result in a loss of altitude, but the airflow over the wings will almost immediately become smooth again and the aircraft will start flying.

Another basic of flying is that the aircraft will glide as long as the airflow over the wings remains smooth even without power--of course the aircraft will slowly be losing altitude, but at a low rate and the aircraft is controllable under these conditions. You may want to search for one of the other threads where this same subject was discussed extensively.

Hutch:tiphat: