Learn more physics!
Q:
How is an airplane able to stay in the air and fly for extended periods of time, like flying from Los Angelos to Australia?
- Cay
Pomfret School, Connecticut
A:
Cay -
To find out how airplanes work in general, click
here.
This page will tell you how the plane gets up into the air and how it
stays up. In order to move through the air, the plane must use its
propellers (or turbines) which are powered by fuel. So the only thing
that separates a plane that can only go a short distance from one that
can go a long way is how much fuel it can carry to run the engines.
Fuel is also important to run the less critical systems inside the
plane - such as lights, control panels, etc.
-Tamara
(published on 10/22/2007)
Follow-up on this answer.
