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• Airplanes stay in the air because there is no net force on them
• With no net force, an object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays that way – even if it's in midair 10 km above the earth's surface
• Gravity pulls down on the plane itself plus all of the people and baggage inside, and every single air molecule that is shot through the engine or collides with the fuselage or wings pushes on the plane as well
• If all of these forces are balanced – in particular, if the air molecules push the plane UP enough to counteract gravity – then the plane stays up
• Getting air molecules to push the plane up

  Plane makes sure the undersides of the wings crash into more air molecules more violently than the upper sides of the wings
• When a plane is parked on the ground

  Air molecules bounce off of the top and bottom of the wings in roughly equal amounts, or with "equal pressure". No lift.
• In motion


  1. Curved shape of the wings and their slightly inclined angle means that the bottoms smash into more air molecules than before (and smash harder into those molecules), so the pressure on the bottom of the wing goes up

  2. Fewer air molecules now strike the top of the wing and those that do strike it less forcefully, partly because it's being "shielded" by its own forward motion and partly because a curving stream of air has lower pressure on the inside of the curve since the molecules get thrown centripetally to the outside

  3. Pressure on the top of the wing goes down
• Low pressure on the top plus high pressure on the bottom, and the plane has lift
• If the pressure/force imbalance is big enough, it can lift the plane up into the air against gravity
• Crashing into air molecules to lift the plane also pushes to slow the plane down
• Engines push air (in this case, backwards), either via a propellor, or a jet, or a jet driving a propellor
• You want to have a really big propellor driven by a really small jet for the most efficient engine
• Even in inefficient engines, the spinning fan blades get their horizontal lift, which we call "thrust," by moving quickly through air with a curved shape and a slightly inclined angle – they're essentially mini-wings
• An airplane is essentially a meta-wing: it flies by moving mini-wings fast enough to push air molecules backwards, which moves the plane forward fast enough that its big wings push air molecules down
• guess

  A) 1

  B) 3

  C) 2