Eli5: How can something as heavy as a aeroplane can lift and even more interesting how can it maintain a certain height for very long time above the air?

Question

Also if someone says increase engine power doesn’t that increase planes weight which means you need more engine power and it goes into a infinite loop

In: 0

Answer 1

Wings are stunningly more efficient than you might think. To address your question about engine power; the amount of upward force (lift) that a wing produces is proportional to the square of the plane’s current airspeed. Making engines more powerful does add weight, but if you look at any aircraft the size of the engines is much smaller than the plane overall. For a normal two-engine passenger aircraft it’s 5% or less.

That said, most aircraft could fly faster than they actually do. Wings are really effective, and we optimise for fuel efficiency rather than maximum airspeed (usually around Mach 0.7-0.8 or so, since aerodynamics get wacky as you approach Mach 1.) Private jets often much faster than this since, being owned by rich people, they care more about getting places fast than saving money on fuel.

Actual ELI5: Wings make more lift when going faster. Bigger engines mean going much faster, and engines are very light compared to all the people and fuel.

Source: I have a degree in this