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How does an airplane fly upsidedown?

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coluber2001
 
Reply Thu 16 Jun, 2005 07:13 am
Since the airfoil counteracts gravity, an airplane flying upside down would reinforce and intersify the force of gravity, so how does the plane stay up?
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patiodog
 
  1  
Reply Thu 16 Jun, 2005 08:03 am
I don't know that I've ever seen an airplane fly upside down for any length of time (except, of course, in Top Gun).
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patiodog
 
  1  
Reply Thu 16 Jun, 2005 08:42 am
Ahhh, here's the answer. Wouldn't work in a glider...

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae627.cfm
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coluber2001
 
  1  
Reply Thu 16 Jun, 2005 09:57 am
Apparantly the elevator is used to point the nose toward the sky and counteract the downward forces. Thanks, patiodog. It sound risky if you're close to the ground.
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patiodog
 
  1  
Reply Thu 16 Jun, 2005 02:45 pm
Not something I want to experience in a 777...
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Maximos1984
 
  1  
Reply Thu 14 Jul, 2005 03:15 pm
WHY NOT?
if the throttle is pushing the palane forward and the wings are straight after a rotation of 180 degree u'll be flying upside down! but it's very risky to change the direction to either up or down "my dad is co. pilot he told me this" ...so if u want to go back to flying normally u'll have to rotate the plane another 180 degrees! how .. i don't know that yet! Laughing
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kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Thu 14 Jul, 2005 03:17 pm
confucious say man who fly plane upside down have crack up.
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Lord Ellpus
 
  1  
Reply Thu 14 Jul, 2005 04:09 pm
confucious say woman who sit on jockeys lap gets a hot tip.
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gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Thu 21 Jul, 2005 02:59 pm
Re: How does an airplane fly upsidedown?
coluber2001 wrote:
Since the airfoil counteracts gravity, an airplane flying upside down would reinforce and intersify the force of gravity, so how does the plane stay up?


One word: elevator. You have three basic controls in an airplane, i.e. rudder, elevator, and ailerons, and the elevator is the one you'd use to keep the nose pointed up in inverted flight.


Also, a passenger plane or cargo plane whose wings are made for high lift is not going to be the one you see flying inverted. The plane you see flying inverted is going to be a military fighter craft or a special aerobatic plane whose wings are much closer to neutral lift.
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DrewDad
 
  1  
Reply Thu 21 Jul, 2005 03:04 pm
kickycan wrote:
confucious say man who fly plane upside down have crack up.

Deja vu all over again.


http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1078739#1078739
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farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Thu 21 Jul, 2005 03:53 pm
and remember, the controls work exactly the opposite when youre upside down. I think , just as important as wing configuration are the plane engines that can still work upside down.
I remember at the Paris Air show, when the had a 747 do stunts such as fly upside down and do rolls. That would really dump the drink cart.
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roger
 
  1  
Reply Thu 21 Jul, 2005 03:58 pm
And cavitate the old oil pump on certain recips.
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raprap
 
  1  
Reply Thu 21 Jul, 2005 03:58 pm
Re: How does an airplane fly upsidedown?
gungasnake wrote:
Also, a passenger plane or cargo plane whose wings are made for high lift is not going to be the one you see flying inverted. The plane you see flying inverted is going to be a military fighter craft or a special aerobatic plane whose wings are much closer to neutral lift.


Not True--about 10 years ago at the Dayton air show (Wright Patterson AFB) I watched a Fex Ex 767 fly over the field at low altitude and inverted.

Most airplanes can fly inverted depending upon the skill of the pilot. An inverted helicopter, on the other hand, is called a crash.

Rap
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roger
 
  1  
Reply Thu 21 Jul, 2005 04:02 pm
Lose control of your cyclic pitch in a helicopter in forward will cause inverted flight, if only briefly. I'm told it makes one helluva tree trimmer - if only briefly.
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kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Thu 21 Jul, 2005 04:12 pm
DrewDad wrote:
kickycan wrote:
confucious say man who fly plane upside down have crack up.

Deja vu all over again.


http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1078739#1078739


Damn, I'm repeating myself now. I always said that the day I start repeating myself on this site, I'd quit...




F*ck that!
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farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Thu 21 Jul, 2005 04:14 pm
the neat thing about Alzheimers is that you meet new people every day
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owl
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Aug, 2005 08:44 pm
all the stuff about bernolies principle is wrong. The lift is caused by the angle of attack. The airfoil is there to reduce drag. thus it is possible to fly upside down.
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georgeob1
 
  1  
Reply Wed 3 Aug, 2005 09:06 pm
Most inverted flight stunts at airshows, particularly by large aircraft, are not true inverted flight at all. Instead it is a ballistic trajectory, done at zero 'g' with zero lift produced by the wings. The pilot enters at low altitude and high speed, pulls the nose up 30-40 degrees and rolls inverted. During the flyby the aircraft follows a parabolic trajectory with the nose coming down towards the horizon until the pilot rolls the aircraft upright.

Inverted flight at constant altitude requires a nose high attitude to produce the lift on the wing as has been noted and involves a very uncomfortable negative 1 'g' - that is your weight is being suported by the shoulder straps (if you have them). Most civilian aircraft have severe limits on how long this can be sustained, based on the inverted performance of fuel pumps and other like systems. Military aircraft are designed for it.
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babylonian
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Sep, 2005 12:50 pm
the reason for the need of a tilt upward on inverse flight is due to how the wings are designed....not particularly because its inverse flight....
most wings are designed with angles for lift in regular mode....doing the opposite requires compensation for the built in angles....

if the wings were designed with the upper and lower half the same, then inverse flight is not a problem as long as you have a force propelling you forward....gaining height in inverse mode just requires moving the elevators in the opposite direction....
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georgeob1
 
  1  
Reply Wed 7 Sep, 2005 01:02 pm
babylonian wrote:
the reason for the need of a tilt upward on inverse flight is due to how the wings are designed....not particularly because its inverse flight....
most wings are designed with angles for lift in regular mode....doing the opposite requires compensation for the built in angles....

if the wings were designed with the upper and lower half the same, then inverse flight is not a problem as long as you have a force propelling you forward....gaining height in inverse mode just requires moving the elevators in the opposite direction....


I think you are a bit confused.

Even in normal 1 g flight, the wing requires a positive angle of attack in order to produce adequate lift. The camber of a subsonic wing does, as you say, require a correspondingly greater angle of attack in inverted flight. However that does not at all alter the description I provided above.
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