Newton’s 1st Law of Motion (Inertia)

In 1687 a very smart dude called Isaac Newton came up with 3 “Laws of Motion” that describe how things start moving, keep moving, and eventually stop. Since this is completely important to how an aircraft flies it makes sense for us to have a look at it. Don’t worry… this science won’t hurt a bit! Newton’s 1st Law The Law of Inertia 1. Without an external force, an object is either at rest or moves...

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Build an A380 in 7 minutes

Continuing on from our previous post showing time-lapse footage of airliner construction, enjoy this extended 7 minute version showing the construction of the world’s largest aircraft, the Airbus A380…

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The Science of Supersonic Freefall

As a follow-up to our article on Joe Kittinger: Supersonic Parachutist, holder of the parachuting altitude record for over 50 years, we present this video explaining some of the problems encountered by people attempting to break this record.  Felix Baumgartner, who plans on making the attempt, is being assisted by Joe Kittinger (who also appears in this...

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Design Your Own Aircraft

Aviation company GE Aviation has added a simple and yet fun “Design Your Own Plane” game to their website.  In this game you can experiment with different wing, engine and fuselage options to try to build an optimum airplane.  Then, when you think you’ve come up with the perfect plane, click a button and watch it fly.  Or not.  (My first one did...

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Air Pressure

The atmosphere is what we call the whole bunch of air which surrounds the Earth. A basic problem with understanding aeroplanes and flying is understanding that air is real stuff! It is invisible, so it looks like a plane is flying though nothing. This is not true! Air is just as real as metal, wood and concrete! In aviation we rely on air being real to fly. The wings push the air downwards giving the LIFT that holds the plane up....

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Airport Security Scanner

The security checkpoint at an airport is a very important place, and very entertaining… What is airport security? Our job is to keep our airport and aeroplanes safe. We want to stop any baddie who might want to bring dangerous things into our airport. Almost everyone is good, but sometimes people bring dangerous things in their luggage by accident. We need to find these things to keep everybody safe. How do you do that? Well,...

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