(Notes taken from ppt and other sources)

Hot air balloon:

• Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier created the First Hot Air Balloon
  • Used smoke from a fire to blow hot air into the ballon (silk bag) to make it lighter than air

How does a hot air balloon work?

• The warmer air is lighter than the cooler air. This is an application of the ideal gas law
  • PV= nRT

(My understanding: The warmer air is less dense in comparison to the cooler air, causing it to rise up/float?) - needa confirm

Orville and Wilbur Wright and the 1st Airplane:

• First heavier than air flight
• Designed the structure of the airplane wings. (They used a wind tunnel to test the different shapes of the wings and tails designed)
• Modern aeroplanes and aircrafts are based on their airplane

Parts of a plane:

• Fuselage: Central body of an Aeroplane (passengers and cargo hold)
• Wing: Helps in balancing, improving aircrafts stability when flying
  • The part that makes the airplane go up
• Leading edge slats - They are moveable pieces in front of the aeroplane wings
  • When deployed, the slats move downwards to increase the curvature of the wing(airfoil), this increases the lift generated causing the aeroplane to get “lifted” into the sky (fly).
  • Slats are used when the aeroplane is taking off

How does the aeroplane wing generate lift?

The upper surface of the wing is curved so that the air which flows over the wing (on top of the wing) is faster, this decreases the pressure (Bernoulli’s principal). The below surface of the wing is flat, so the speed and pressure remain about the same. Since high pressure always moves towards low pressure, (lower surface of the wing has high pressure and the upper has low pressure) this generates a lift as the air below the wing pushes it upwards. The faster an aeroplane moves the greater the lift will be.

• Trailing edge flaps: Sorta the same as slats
  • To generate more lift at slower air speeds
  • Used during take off (along with slats) and also during landing
  • During landing they increase the drag (opposite of lift) which slows the plane down