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

Three things:

– Excess power: more than required for its weight. Big boom at back, big speed in front. So they can even accelerate while flying straight up vertically.

– Unstable: Unlike regular aircraft which like to be stable and fly straight, fighter jets are usually inherently unstable. While this might sound scary, it means that it responds very quickly to the pilot’s control inputs.

– Wing loading: The wings are blended with the fuselage in most modern fighters, so the g-force load is distributed evenly. In other words, hard maneuvers won’t break the plane.

All of this contributes to a concept called *supermaneuverability.* For normal aircraft, you can maneuver them only by altering the airflow over the wings, ailerons, elevators, rudders etc. For fighters, you can control them in situations which exceed pure aerodynamic mechanisms. Hence they are *super* maneuverable.