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

The lift comes from the wings, not directly from the engines.

When a plane is still, there is air pressure surrounding it on all sides. There’s pressure pushing down on the wings, and there’s pressure pushing up on the wing. That cancels out since the air pressure above and below the wing are the same. The plane stays on the ground.

When the plane is moving, the shape of the wing causes the air pressure on top to drop far below the pressure on the bottom of the wing. Since the air pressure is greater on the underside of the wing, that pushes the plane up.

Increasing the engine’s power doesn’t always come with a massive increase in weight that offsets effects of having a more powerful engine.