Being an aviator is crucial part of my story. This semester has shown me that physics plays an integral part of the profession that I aspire to. Below I'm going to walk you through each of the steps I go through before I take-off and before I land.
Taking Off
Rotation ~ The physical property of rotation plays a crucial role in the taking off process. The plane is able to generate thrust through the forward propeller on the front of the plane. The propeller is able to spin due to the torque placed on the individual parts of the propeller. They follow this formula; Torque = Radius (Force) sin (Theta)
Energy ~ Stalling the plane is when the propeller and wings aren't generation enough lift to keep the plane airborne. This happens when A) your angle of attack is too high (the plane is aimed too high up) or B) you're taking off and you pull up too fast, losing the airspeed needed to get off the ground. In my experience with stalling the plane (on purpose)the stall horn goes off, and the plane begins to feel like it's slowing down. Then, as the stall horn reaches its peak, the front of the plane falls forward (normally with one wing falling ahead of the other) and you drop like a rock. When you stall, the drag of the plane completely negates and eliminates the thrust of the plane. However, this also applies to the Y-Direction where the weight negates the lift and for one moment, you're completely still in the sky before you fall back down, kinetic energy increasing as your potential energy decreases.
Forces ~ When encountering forces while in mid-air the most common one that you can perceive, would be gravity. There are many ways to 'play' with gravity while up in the air and one of my favorites would be zero G's. In this situation, you go up as if you were going to stall, before you push down, almost completely vertical. This sudden drop has zero gravity acting on you. This is because the plane is diving down while you are staying in the same spot you were before. Another one of my favorite maneuvers while in a plane, would be when you're under three G's. You can force this to happen by turning at anything over a 45 degree angle and pulling up. In this situation, you're countering the force of gravity by attempting to pull the plane up, when it's natural position would be to fall. This is due to inertia where the plane is traveling up, yet the inertia of your own momentum is keeping you in the same place, counteracting each other.
Motion ~ When we come in for a land, contrary to popular belief, you come in at an angle where you speed up. Then, around sixty feet before you touch the runway, you pull up, aiming at a 55-60 degree angle. The velocity at that point is facing perpendicular to the velocity when first coming in for a landing. Then, you let the plane carry you down to the ground where you gently touchdown. When you touch down the force of friction is pulling the plane to a stop as the inertia from going forward fights against it. Within a thousand feet, the plane comes to a full stop, the friction finally pulling the plane to a stop.
Momentum ~ Upon landing a lot of things can go wrong and there are a lot of things you have to factor in to keep yourself from crashing. However, there are some situations where you do crash, which can lead to an extreme change in momentum. Some of the ways this could happen is if you keep your angle of attack too low for too long and you don't pull up fast enough. In this situation, you'd hit the ground going (around) 74 miles per hour.