How do the wings of an airplane work?

The Wings of an Airplane

You've probably stuck your hands out the window of a moving vehicle, imagining that they are the wings of an airplane, you have turned them up and down. You will also have observed that the wind raises them slightly when tilting them up.

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How the Wings of an Airplane Work

The wings of an airplane are a majestic and highly complex piece of engineering. They are simply almost alive.

In various aircraft models, computer systems control wing components to adjust to flight conditions such as gusts, turbulence, even being slightly too high for landing, and more.

Sometimes you will see that those parts of the wings of an airplane move quickly, sometimes with almost imperceptible adjustments, and on landing, these movements can occur very frequently.

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Components of Aircraft Wings

We are going to know in more detail some of the main components of the wings:

Ailerons: The Small Airplane Wing

The ailerons, a commercial airplane has two, control the movement of the aircraft in its longitudinal axis, causing it to roll from left to right.

Spoiler is the French word for "small wing," and that's exactly what they are. Like the wing, the spoiler is teardrop-shaped when viewed from the side and has the thinnest edge at the rear.

Ailerons are located on the outer edge of the wings of an airplane. To see the ailerons, you will have to look closely. On an airliner, the ailerons move very slightly from the passenger's perspective.

In fact, when the plane leans into a turn, you may notice that the aileron returns to its flush position, but the plane continues to lean. It does so due to the centripetal force that keeps it in a spin.

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When a pilot shifts the control column to the right (or the autopilot in most cases), the aileron on the right wing rises while the aileron on the opposite wing descends.

The act of raising the right wing aileron reduces the lift of the right wing, and when the wings have a reduction in lift, they drop. Here, the right wing descends in a controlled turn to the right.

Spoilers and Air Brakes

They lower the elevation, mostly, as the name implies, spoilers spoil something. Here, they ruin the lift produced by the wing, in the same way that an aileron does.

So what is the point? Spoilers allow the aircraft to lose lift and descend in a controllable manner.

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Spoilers work by making the wing less efficient, in a controlled manner. This is a great way to slow down unwanted air as you slow to get closer to the ground.

It also allows the aircraft to descend at a faster but more comfortable speed, if you have a lot of altitude to lose.

There are often two sets of spoilers on aircraft wings. The assembly near the fuselage is called ground spoilers or air brakes.

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The ground spoilers are exactly the same panels that are used as speed brakes in flight, except that on the ground they are allowed to deflect completely and maximize the “lift off” effect.

The spoilers are assumed to function by acting as an air brake, but in fact 80 percent of their contribution to stopping the aircraft is preventing the wing from producing lift.

This forces the total weight of the aircraft on the main wheels, making the wheel brakes much more efficient.

Airplane Fins: Increase Elevation

The first machine-like hum you hear when a plane descends to land is the sound of flaps unfolding.

The flaps are in charge of raising and dragging. The flap deployment allows the pilot to descend and maintain lift at a much slower speed as they approach.

At the same time, deploying flaps provides drag, which slows the aircraft. In most passenger aircraft, there are internal fins and external fins. They unfold in degrees, as the plane descends to land.

The flaps are raised and lowered through the aircraft's hydraulics within torpedo-shaped bodies under the wing, called track fairings. These also serve a dual purpose of improving aerodynamic flow under the wing.

Flaperons on the Wings of an Airplane

As its name suggests, a flaperon is a device that is both an aileron and a flap.

They operate more like ailerons than fins; they can be quickly adjusted up and down like a spoiler, especially compared to flaps (which unfold with difficulty).

For a right turn, for example, the right wing aileron will rise very slightly, lowering the lift of the plane's wing, while the flaperon will extend very slightly to counter some of that lift loss in a controlled manner.

All this done by the aircraft's computers without additional information from the pilot.

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spoiler

A spoileron is a spoiler that also acts in a similar way to a spoiler, and these days everyone does.

It is not a separate component, but rather a term used to describe the function of spoilers on many modern commercial aircraft.

Spoilers automatically, and without pilot input, in conjunction with the spoiler, to aid in turning along the longitudinal axis.

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