I flew for the first time on a plane last week and I’ve seen planes take off at the airport. It looks crazy. But being on one is totally different like holy shit. The thing just FLIES. It just… Soars… Through the sky! Like whoa man. Wtf… It’s crazy. With how much these things weigh, it’s insane to me the thing can just go up and bam, there we are, we’re flying now. Like wow… Dude crazy.

  • ben_dover@lemmy.ml
    38·
    7 days ago

    it works because we believe in it. if everyone would lose faith in airplanes, they’d drop out of the sky.

  • bitwaba@lemmy.world
    17·
    6 days ago

    You think that’s crazy? The ship that blocked the Suez Canal, the Ever Given, has a ship displacement (how much water is displaced when it sits in the ocean) of 265,000 Tons.

    That’s 240 million kilograms.

    And that shit just floats on fucking water maaaaan…

      • bitwaba@lemmy.world
        8·
        6 days ago

        There are tons of tons, believe it or not.

        There’s the short ton (2000lbs), long ton (2240 lbs), and tonne (1000kgs) which are all measure weight. However there’s also the shipping/freight/ocean ton which is a measure of volume (which is also different in the US and UK), and the register ton.

        However I did make a mistake. The wikipedia page I was reading said the weight in t and long tons. I made the mistake of assuming they meant short tons - in reality when measuring displacement for a ship, tonnes are used (which is pretty sensible, considering you’re displacing water and a liter of water to a kilogram of water have a pretty easy conversion formula formula…)

      • SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee
        11·
        6 days ago

        No, every once in a while the planes need to stretch out. They get tired from being so stiff. This helps their joints later in their life span.

      • Belgdore@lemm.ee
        11·
        6 days ago

        Basically. The wings have to be able to bend that much so they don’t break off in strong winds or hard maneuvers.

  • passiveaggressivesonar@lemmy.world
    9·
    6 days ago

    Airplane engines have deceptively high thrust, imagine each one as a rocket and it’ll start to make sense. The a380 (the big double decker) each engine produces around 350KN. When that thrust is applied to an 80kg human they’ll experience almost 450Gs of force

    In an extreme sense, imagine putting a little rocket engine on a paper airplane which will represent a high thrust to weight ratio

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
      5·
      6 days ago

      Your last description is essentially the idea behind the F-117a. That thing isn’t wasn’t flying, it’s it was achieving escape velocity.

  • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
    10·
    6 days ago

    I’m a mechanical engineer and have a general understanding of how wings work. I’ve flown many times. That shit still feels like magic to me.

    • SkyJuice@lemmy.world
      5·
      6 days ago

      I was most impressed by the sheer amount of power those engines put out when you finally take off. The acceleration gave me a boost of adrenaline when I flew for the first time (it was a Southwest Boeing 737)

  • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.eeEnglish
    12·
    7 days ago

    Consider the amount of air its wings must displace in order to stay aloft. An equal quantity of mass at least. It’s passing through that air and, partly pushing it down, but also partially scraping it thin over the bowed top surface of the wing (the Bernoulli principle) which creates a pressure differential that lifts the wing, pulling it upward through suction, and thus the plane. That’s why the plane must go fast to fly, and why it “stalls” and falls if it isn’t moving through enough air. It’s also how turbulence affects a plane. Differences in air pressure mean that in pockets of low pressure there isn’t as much mass being displaced by the wings, not enough lift so it falls.

    Now, it’s quite likely that my layman’s comprehension of this is flawed. But I’m sure it’s entirely possible that someone will correct me soon :3

    • NiHaDuncan@lemmy.world
      5·
      7 days ago

      To be pedantic: It’s not necessarily an equal amount of mass, it just has to accelerate (this includes deceleration which is acceleration opposing a component of a vector of travel) any amount of mass along and opposite to the vector of the plane’s acceleration due to gravity so long as the amount of mass (and the averaged amount of that mass’ acceleration in the aforementioned direction i.e. force) is in ratio with the planes mass and it’s acceleration due to gravity.

      There’s a lot of other pedantic caveats but they’d make this comment far too long. The main thing I want to convey is that mass doesn’t necessarily matter but rather force (m*v) and also that the “suction” and thereby acceleration that a plane’s airfoil experiences is also it causing an acceleration on the air around it by decelerating it along the path that it wants to flow. It all depends on frame of reference.

      I suck at explaining things, this video might do a better job at getting the idea across.

      • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.eeEnglish
        9·
        7 days ago

        I fully expect to come back to lemmy in 48 hours to find a fascinatingly detailed and viciously incisive rebuttal that calls me at least three slurs in the first paragraph, sprinkles additional passive aggressive repudiations of my character throughout, and finishes with a tactical f-bomb too :D

    • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
      1·
      6 days ago

      I think whoever doesn’t look up as they hear a plane or helicopter flying is insane. Ever since as a child I have looked up.

  • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
    9·
    7 days ago

    It’s magical, right? It’s what got me interested in aviation - the physics, the science, the engineering to make it work. And we’ve gotten so good at it, air travel is now available to most people, it’s safe and convenient.

    I’ve flown exactly three times in my life: a hot air balloon, a helicopter and a DC3. Each was magical in its own way. I’ve also done a fair bit of plane spotting. Seeing an Airbus A380 landing right in front of you is amazing. It really is the size of a large apartment block with wings. Truly awe inspiring.

    Aviation is fucking awesome!

    • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
      4·
      7 days ago

      You’ve flown or you’ve flown in? Presumable the former, but I know people from where I’m from use flown to mean flown in. If you’ve only been airborne three times, and all in separate crafts, that’s something special in and of itself.

      • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
        3·
        7 days ago

        Flown in, as a passenger. I’d have said ‘piloted’ if I was the pilot.

        And yes, that’s an odd trio of aircraft, considering most people only really fly on airliners. I’ve been on a Boeing 747 in a museum, but have never flown in an airliner.

    • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
      1·
      6 days ago

      I’ve only been in a helicopter once, but that was the coolest. Parasailing being pulled by a boat was also very fun.

      • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
        2·
        6 days ago

        I really enjoyed my helicopter ride as well - a sightseeing flight on vacation. That was on a Schweitzer S300; a small helicopter with a bench seat in the front. So you’re sitting right next to the pilot with an almost unobstructed forward vision. So cool. Definitely not something for people with a fear of heights.

  • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
    5·
    6 days ago

    The wings are crazy ! They look way too flimsy for what they do.

    Next time you see an airplane, imagine a crane picking it up by the wings, around the middle of the wing length, and then start shaking it up.

    It does not look like the wing will be able to hold that much weight.

  • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    651·
    7 days ago

    I hate that everybody’s like, it’s not that big a deal.

    We only started doing it 124 years ago! Prior to that it was a very big deal indeed.

    Everyone’s so fucking smart these days, there’s no room for a sense of wonder. It’s like being blasé and knowledgeable is cool. It’s really not.

    You keep flying with your beautiful sense of wonder, Buttflapper!

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
      5·
      7 days ago

      Some lady told me she read Atlas Shrugged while in the hospital for a long stay, kept alive by equipment she neither invented nor paid for. How oblivious people can be when we are all just barely something more than monkeys? Some of us manage to be passably unoblivious and I think that’s what makes us human; the potential to be more rational than a monkey. It’s no guarantee, though, as you so noted. You know there was a caveperson who just learned about fire and still went around and acted like he invented it straight up to the caveperson that did invent it. Monkey brain stuff.

    • Soggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      6 days ago

      I don’t need ignorance to feel wonder. I think things are cooler when I can marvel at the complex mechanics behind it all.

      • Adderbox76@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        What puts me in awe of things like flight isn’t the act itself, but the brilliance of the people who designed it to work. I look at the aerodynamic shape of an airfoil and think “we did that…humans”.

        • Soggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          To be fair, we sorta knew it was possible because birds. I think it’s more impressive when we don’t know what can happen, like breaking the sound barrier or putting people in space.

    • Knightfox@lemmy.oneEnglish
      3·
      7 days ago

      That’s the thing though, what’s amazing about planes really depends on your knowledge base or what experience is specifically being enjoyed. If you don’t understand how planes work then the difference is moot because whether seeing or doing the entire thing is magical. If you do understand how planes work you might know that the crazy thing isn’t flight, we knew how to do that since approximately 1800 when the first gliders were built, the crazy part was generating enough power to make powered flight possible. If you understand how flight works and are still enjoying the experience of flight is where wonder still exists.

      You know the wonder of flight still exists because some number of kids and adults would pick flight as a super power if given the choice.

    • ArtVandelay@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      7 days ago

      Well fucking said. Smoke noodles rarely have room for curiosity, which is where new things often come from.

      Edit: Not sure how smarmy know-it-alls became that, but I’m not changing it now

      • Jarix@lemmy.world
        1·
        7 days ago

        I’m pretty sure i can’t trust Arthur Vandelay, they are the kind of people that would pass off something they did as if it wasnt intentional