Beginner's Guide to Aerodynamics

More than 100,000 commercial flights take off every day, but how do the planes fly? Veritasium presents a video explaining the way wings work. It opens with the common misconception, then introduces two seemingly conflicting...

Why do airplane wings curve up at the ends? Here's a video that introduces viewers to winglets, the curved ends of airplane wings. It begins with an introduction to how airplane wings give both lift and drag then explains the vortex...

How does an airplane stay aloft when upside down? This media-rich essay from the NOVA Web site offers an explanation based on Newton's third law of motion.

Demonstrate lift to the class that is studying aerodynamics. In the stream of air produced by a blow dryer, little physicists place a wad of tissue paper and a spherical figure to compare. Or, if you have a vacuum cleaner and beach ball,...

Airplane wings do not all have the same design. With this Science Buddies project you can design your own wings to see which offers the greatest lift. The Science Buddies project ideas are set up consistently beginning with an abstract,...

Are you studying or teaching Aerodynamics? This page acts as an index to all the terminology related to this topic. Clicking on any title will open a page with a colored slide and a scientific explanation of the contents. Animated,...

Students demonstrate an understanding of the text by applying it to the calculations involving the area of a wing. They use an online textbook to help them calculate the area of the surface of wing planforms.

Learn about lift, thrust, drag, weight, airfoil, air pressure, Bernoulli's principle to understand flight aerodynamics. [7:14]

This NASA video demonstrates how Newton's law of motion applies to the lift of an airplane. Watch as an instructor shows student how an airplane overcomes the downward force of its weight by changing the air molecules colliding with the...

Students read from a NASA Web-based textbook, then students demonstrate an understanding of the text by answering questions about the forces on an airplane and their resulting motions.