How Do Airplanes Fly? | Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains...

As a licensed pilot, I can offer that the best direction to fly when taking off or landing is the same as the runway heading.

Great video as always! I’m an aerospace engineering student who just finished Applied Aerodynamics and there is an interesting note bout how wings generate lift. The part where air moves faster on the top surface than on the bottom surface is 100% true, but the part about an air molecule needed to regroup with the other molecules it was near before encountering the wing is actually a myth. There is no requirement for “air molecule neighbors” to remain neighbors after encountering the wing. The only requirement is that air moves faster on the top. A subtle distinction, but still interesting!

4:18 he literally describes word for word the Equal Transit Theory which has been accepted as wrong.

Chuck is the perfect contrast to Neil's seriousness, the comment "too bad you're not an airplane" cracked me up

the explanation with bernoulli and the distances is actually not right

Me who has studied Aerospace Engineering at undergrad level clicking on this video: Neil deGrasse will probably explain this in a way I have never learnt before

The parcel staying together is wrong.

I would add something that was beaten into my head by my flight instructors. A planes wing will stall at any speed and attitude. Stall occurs when the critical angle of attack to the relative wind is exceeded.

Small nit-pic about the aircraft carriers, because I work on one (USS Hornet CV-12). The 24 Essex class carriers built during WWII were all built with straight decks, and were all converted to angled deck carriers in the '50's (SCB-125 program), and it was the Forestal class starting in the mid '50's that were the first carries built from scratch with an angled deck. Before the introduction of the angle (a British invention actually), the planes would land in the same direction they took off, and the pilot hoped he hit the arresting wires because, if he missed, there would be a barricade to catch him, and that would hurt (the pilot, and the plane). If he missed that, the only other thing to stop him would be the other planes parked on the front of the deck. By converting to an angled deck, you land on the angle and take off and the straight part up front. That way, if you miss your arresting wire, you can still go around and try again. It has nothing to the wind over the deck. Because the aircraft carrier is a boat, and it's operating in the middle of the ocean, it can always move and make its own wind (30-ish knots), and it doesn't matter in that case what breezes are coming off the ocean. The ship can always turn into the wind if necessary. Another interesting piece of equipment is the catapult on the carries. The older Essex class used hydraulics, the newer super carriers used steam, and the newest Ford Class uses EMALS (electromagnetic). Amazing systems.

When you see the bernulli effect on a wing, an upward force has already occurred caused by a downward one.