Theory Of Flight Flashcards
For an aircraft to remain in flight, 4 forces must be balanced. Name them.
Thrust, Drag, Lift, Weight
Define thrust
The mechanical force, provided by a system of propulsion, which moves the aero foil through the air allowing the aero foil to produce lift.
In other words, propulsion from jets/ propellers that drives the plane forward
Define drag
The aerodynamic force that opposes and aircrafts motion through the air and is generated by every part of the plane.
Define lift
An aerodynamic force generated by the aerofoils motion through the air, to overcome the weight force.
Define weight
The force generated by the gravitational attraction of the earth on the aeroplane. Always acts downwards towards the centre of the earth irrespective of the attitude of the aircraft.
What is the fuselage of an aircraft?
The main body of the aircraft, containing the crew, passengers and cargo.
Name some directional structural components of fixed wing aircraft?
Vertical stabiliser, rudder, elevator, ailerons, flaps
The rudder, elevator, and vertical stabiliser can be found on which part of the plane?
The tail plane
What is a chord line?
An imaginary straight line passing directly from the mid-point of the leading edge of the wing to the trailing edge. Any number of chord lines may be drawn along the length of a wing.
What is a camber line?
An imaginary line that follows directly in the midpoint of thickness of a cambered wing from leading edge to trailing edge. Usually cured towards the upper surface.
What is the angle of attack?
The angle between the chord line and the relative wind flow.
Name some wing configurations you may find on a fixed wing plane?
Low wing, mid wing, high wing, gull wing, inverted gull, anhedral wing (sloping up) and dihedral wing (sloping down)are all wing configurations used by commercial air transport
Explain the Bernoulli principle?
Air passing over an aero foil wing speeds up as it passes over the upper surface, causing a decrease in static pressure to account for the increase in dynamic pressure. This pressure gradient forces the air to move from high to low pressure, forcing the aircraft upwards.
At smaller angles, lift is related to angle of attack. But as angle of attack increases beyond critical angle of attack, what happens?
The air flow can become too turbulent causing a stalled air flow.
Aircraft ‘yaw’ around which axis?
Vertical or ‘Z’ axis. Aircraft remains stable but shifts slightly left or right.
Aircraft ‘pitch’ around which axis?
The lateral or ‘Y’ axis. The nose will dip up or down
Aircraft ‘roll’ around which axis?
The longitudinal ‘X’ axis. Aircraft bank left or right and aircraft tilts accordingly.
What controls aircraft yaw?
The rudder
What controls aircraft pitch?
The elevators. Allows a/c to climb or descend
What controls aircraft roll?
The ailerons
What are trim tabs?
Auxiliary flight control surfaces that enables the pilot to make adjustments during flight to make an unbalance correction
What are flaps and salts designed for?
Adjusting the wing shape and size to increase lift at takeoff and drag at landing
What is aircraft power used for?
The power from the engines is used to overcome drag but has a secondary effect of increasing lift by increasing air flow over the wing.
A typical helicopter has 3 flight control inputs. Name them .
Cyclic
Collective
Anti-torque pedals
Cyclic and collective inputs may be linked together by a mixing unit.
