Usually planes are able to fly when air moves across the wings which generates lift. But how do fighter jets able to maintain lift while performing aerobatic maneuvers?

Question

Usually planes are able to fly when air moves across the wings which generates lift. But how do fighter jets able to maintain lift while performing aerobatic maneuvers?

In: 342

Answer 1

I’ll try an ELI5 verison: Think of a pendulum. It swings back and forth. At the bottom of the swing it has no ‘height’ but lots of speed. At the top of either swing it has a lot of ‘height’ but no speed. All it does is trade speed and height back and forth. Both are forms of energy; potential and kinetic. You’re allowed to trade those two, there is even a math formula for it.

This is all aerobatics is, energy management, trading one form for the other. An aircraft can do this as long as there is some airflow over its control surfaces so the pilot can steer it.

The wings really help because air is a fluid so there is drag, wings are good at trading height for speed while creating little drag. But drag always wings, drag steals energy so eventually you need to add my energy back into the pendulum/plane system. You can do that by either losing height over time or having an engine that adds energy back into the system.

Some further things to help you grasp. A plane doesn’t always need to be generating lift, it can be ‘falling’ and that’s fine. An example of this is a plane is at 90 degrees of bank, it will not keep altitude, it will fall some. It’s fine. Also, some planes can fly level while being upside down, generating lift.

I think the better question you should ask to understand this is how does a glider do aerobatics?

Source: Had to do a bit of aerobatics as part of my flight training in an underpowered plane. It’s all about energy management.