Fact about airplanes

Answer 1

Air foils operate according to prinicples discovered by Newton and Bernoulli and inferred as early as Leonardo da vinci.

Gas turbine engines do not use the term 'horsepower' to rate their engines. Instead, they rate power (thrust) in pounds.

In pictures, some airplanes have a layer of fog over the wings. This is condensation of very dense and moist air as the aircraft passes through that column of air. Condensation trails (con trails) result from the lower pressure air along the top of the wing being unable to hold ambient water vapor in suspension. The phenomenon is the same thing one sees on a single pane window on a cold day, except that the vapor trails off of the aircraft anywhere that the high and low ressure air meet: trailing edges of wings and engine nacelles, empennage, etc.

At 63 feet, a Boeing 747-8's tail stands above 6 stories high.

The Concorde fuselage, when flying at supersonic speeds, would heat up to 90 degC on the wings and 127 degC at the nose. This was offset by white paint and having the fuel load cool the wings. Temperature limitation that resulted in the aircraft being designed around a speed of Mach 2.2. Faster aircraft are possible (eg. SR-71), but require the use of much more expensive alloys (stainless steel, titanium, etc).

The first few aircraft simulators were manually moved to train the pilot for each phase of flight.

A modern Full Flight Simulator only moves about 3-5 inches during a take off simulation yet the pilot feels a continuous form of acceleration sitting inside.

To the naked eye, an aircraft would look like a rigid object of metal flying in the air whereas the aircraft's fuselage can actually grow a bit during flight in a phenomenon called "creep" and the wings can flex almost 15 feet in total on some aircraft.

Aircraft with high landing speeds often use 'reverse thrust' to help them reduce their brake loading and minimum runway length requirements.

Reverse thrust does not change the direction of rotation of the engine blades but deflects the air in front or to the sides via a pair of clamshell doors that close over the exhaust nozzle. (Newtons 3rd Law)

The weight of the aircraft acts from the center of gravity (CG) while the other forces are said to act through the center of pressure (CP) or aerodynamic center.