Summary
Investigates the four forces of flight — lift, weight, thrust, and drag — and explains how airplane wings generate lift by creating a pressure difference above and below the wing.
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All ages
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Discussion
- What are the four forces of flight? Which two are competing pairs?
- How does the shape of a wing create lift?
- What would happen to a flying plane if the engine stopped producing thrust?
- How do birds and airplanes use the same physics — even though they are built very differently?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: lift, weight, thrust, drag, air pressure, wing, Bernoulli.
Try it: Fold three different paper airplane designs and test which flies farthest, highest, and longest. Record results and discuss: which design had the best lift-to-drag ratio? What feature made the difference?