EVOLUTION: Believe it or not, the
aircrafts today have a lot in common with some of the first ever planes
made
and even the one the Wright brothers
made in 1903. This is in the sense that
all planes have engines and wing spans that provide enough thrust and
lift to
overcome gravity, weight,
and drag, and to take flight. Most of the
evolution
of the aircraft, much like other big inventions,
come in the design of single
parts on the object,
specifically the airfoil of the aircraft. As shown
in the
figure below, the airfoil and more specifically
the bottom of the airfoil
has changed drastically.
In the beginning, the Wright brothers made the
bottom
of the airfoil concave down. This was successful in the sense that it
got their
plane
off the ground, but this design did not hold for very long and
was not
very efficient. The efficiency on this design was not great because as
the
air
hit the bottom of the airfoil, it created a gap where no air flowed. No
air
flow results in a lack of lift and this allows room for improvement.
This
was
quickly compensated for in the next few
designs and eventually the flat bottom was introduced. This design held
for a
while but was overturned
when the bottom of the
airfoil became concave up.
Other designs such as the diamond provide advantages for supersonic
speed, but
for the most
part, the top of the airfoil is concave down and the bottom is
concave up, both in circular shapes. Most wings now are the same design
with
different variations.
