4 Principles of Flight

An aircraft is a complex machine and in order to understand how the aircraft flies you need probably years to understand, however here in this article, I'll try to give a much basic view of how the aircraft flies and maintains itself in the air.

For the basic understanding, there are 4 forces that helps the aircraft to fly they are described below:-

Image Credits:- RC Airplane World

Lift:- The Upward Force that helps the aircraft stay in the air.

Weight:- Downward force that pulls the aircraft to the ground.

Thrust:- The forward force that pushes the aircraft through the air.

Drag:- The backward force that slows down the plane and limits its performance.

In a much simpler way imagine that the fan attached to the front of the plane( The above image) generates power and pushes the airplane in a forward motion. The 3 types of wings that you see help the airplane fly in the air. Now if the airplane has too much weight the result is that it won't be able to fly. Drag happens when the aircraft is pulled back resulting in slower speed.

Hope that was cleared!!!