Over the years, there have been many odd airplane designs, but one you probably haven’t seen much is the forward-swept wing. While most early aircraft featured straight wings, rear-swept wings are Keep reading
Tag: airplanes
Noisy Jets
One major problem that has plagued supersonic aircraft is their noise. The Concorde – thus far the only supersonic commercial airliner – was plagued with noise complaints that ultimately restricted Keep reading
Vortices and Ground Effect
Though typically unseen, the vortices that swirl from the tips of aircraft wings are powerful. Here you see a Hawker Sea Fury equipped with a smoke system used to visualize Keep reading
Stall with Pitching Foils
For a fixed-wing aircraft, stall – the point where airflow around the wing separates and lift is lost – is an enemy. It’s the precursor to a stomach-turning freefall for Keep reading
Star Wars Aerodynamics
Science fiction is not always known for hewing to scientific fact, so it will probably come as little surprise that Star Wars’ ships have terrible aerodynamics. But it’s nevertheless fun Keep reading
Seeing the Wake
Hot exhaust gases churn in the wake of this climbing B-1B Lancer. The high temperature of the exhaust changes the density and, thus, the refractive index of the gases relative Keep reading
Lift Over Wings
One of the most vexing topics for fluid dynamicists and their audiences is the subject of how wings generate lift. As discussed in the video above, there are a number Keep reading
Sunset Vortices
Often our atmosphere’s transparency masks the beautiful flows around us. This spectacular image shows a flight landing in Munich just after sunrise. Low-hanging clouds get sliced by the airplane’s passage Keep reading
Shocks on a Wing
Commercial airliners fly in what is known as the transonic regime at Mach numbers between 0.8 and 1.0. While the airplane itself never exceeds the speed of sound, that doesn’t Keep reading
Crow Instability
Watching airplane contrails overhead, you may have noticed them transform into a daisy chain of distorted rings. This is an effect known as the Crow instability. The contrails themselves are Keep reading