How do planes fly upside-down?

854 views

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?

In: 373

33 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Ignore air liners for now because they can’t really fly upside down anyways. The wings on fighter jets mostly don’t generate lift because of their shape, but because of the angle of attack. Angle of attack (AoA) is the angle between the oncoming air and the plane of the wings. What it means is that when a fighter aircraft is flying straight, its nose is actually pointing up slightly. [This is an example.](https://theaviationist-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ItAF-Typhoon-Seahawak.jpg) Because the fighters have to go so slow to keep up with the helicopter, and lift decreases the slower you are going, they have to increase their AoA (point nose up) to generate enough lift to stay in the air.

So when you want to fly upside down in a fighter aircraft, you just have to keep your nose pointed up into the oncoming air, [like this.](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d3352e0adf3a1307de80c724b48bc40c)

You are viewing 1 out of 33 answers, click here to view all answers.