Feb 15, 2012
— read in fullWhy most people are wrong about how planes fly
Jan 27, 2012
An engineer has becomes so frustrated by misunderstandings of how planes fly that he created a YouTube video to deal with the myth.
Professor Holger Babinsky says that many of the people he teaches believe a false explanation, which says that air moving over the curved top of a wing has to move faster to keep up with the air moving along the flat bottom. The higher speed causes a drop in the air pressure above the wing, which lifts the plane into the air.
There are a few problems with this explanation: it doesn’t explain how planes can fly upside-down, and there’s no reason why the air at the top needs to get to the back of the wing at the same time as the air at the bottom. The professor’s video shows that air does move over the top of the wing quicker, but not to keep up with the air at the bottom - in fact, it gets to the end first.
Professor Babinsky hopes that releasing the video will stop the myth - which can be found in textbooks and classrooms around the world - being repeated.
Related Links
- Career profile: Aerospace engineer
- Emergency! Is there an engineer on board?
- Maths problems almost everyone gets wrong
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