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FoilSim

Characteristics of Lift and Wing Area

Activity

Aeronautics Logo

If so instructed by your teacher, print out a worksheet page for these problems.


  1. Use FoilSim to answer the following questions :
    1. You are flying a 10,000 pound airplane( this includes personnel and cargo) at an altitude of 2,000 feet. The wings have an angle of attack of 5 degrees, a camber of 8.75%, a thickness of 15%, and an area of 100 square feet. What airspeed should you attain to have to maintain your altitude?
    2. Your plane drops 1,500 pounds of supplies to relief workers. Enter your new mass.What angle of attack will maintain your altitude of 2,000 feet?
    3. You make another drop of supplies, this time 750 pounds of food. To what value should you change your wing area to maintain your altitude of 2,000 feet?

  2. The wings of the airplane you are flying are shaped like the right triangle below.
Drawing of a triangle
  1. The total area for both of your wings is your answer in 1.3 above. Knowing the area of a triangle = 1/2 base x height. What is the length of the base if the height of the wing is 5 feet?
  2. Suppose the total area is 120 square feet, and the base of 1 wing is 20 feet. What is the height?

  1. Set these initial conditions:

    Airspeed: 100 mph

    Altitude: 20,000 feet

    Angle: 1.5 degrees

    Thickness: 5%

    Camber: 3.75%

    Select 10 different values of Area between 200 and 700 square feet and record the corresponding values of Lift.

Area (sq. ft.)
Lift (lb.)
200
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700
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  1. Graph Lift vs. Area with the values you obtained.
  2. What did you notice about the line connecting the points you graphed?
  3. From your graph determine the amount of lift you would generate if you had an area of 550 square feet. Check your answer by entering 550 square feet for the area and observing the amount of lift generated.

 


Related Pages:
Standards
Worksheet
Lesson Index
Aerodynamics Index

 

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Editor: Tom Benson
NASA Official: Tom Benson
Last Updated: Thu, May 13 02:38:38 PM EDT 2021

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