I understand that the wing of the plane creates downforce, lifting the plane into the air, so how do planes fly upside-down? Wouldn’t the wings start pushing the plane down into the ground once flipped?
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The shape of the wings helps. But lift is generated when there’s more force below the plane pushing up than there is force pulling it down.
All movement, in any direction, is just imbalanced forced.
When a wing starts moving through the air, it starts colliding with that air. The air applies a force to the plane. If the wings were parallel to the ground, the force would be backwards. Wings are angled in a way that the air they move through is pushed down, so the plane is pushed up.
The shape of the wings amplifies this by creating a pressure differential. But fundamentally lift is the same as any other movement.
So how does a plane fly upside down? Same way it flies right way up: By angling the wings and maintaining speed such that there is more air pushing upwards than the combined forces pulling it down.
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