Flight Mechanisms: An Analysis of Aerodynamic and Buoyant Forces

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the physics of flight, exploring various mechanisms that enable objects to move through the air. It delves into the concepts of aerodynamic lift, generated by the deflection of air, and propulsive thrust, essential for sustained flight. The report examines both powered and unpowered flight, including examples such as airplanes, birds, and even the use of buoyancy in aerostats like balloons. It also covers the principles of buoyant flight, where objects rise due to their lower density compared to the surrounding air. The report further discusses the influence of friction, the role of wing design, and the applications of flight principles, such as in the floating of ships. The report concludes by summarizing the diverse range of objects that can achieve flight and the human inventions that utilize these principles.

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INTRODUCTION
Flight refers to the process by which the heavy objects move through the air without making
any contact with the surface of the earth. This can be made possible by generating an
aerodynamic lift which is normally associated with propulsive thrust. Other mechanisms may
include aero statistically method that uses buoyancy or even the ballistic motions.
In general, many things can actually fly ranging from the natural aviators like the birds,
insects and bats. The human invention such as aircrafts which includes airplane, balloons,
helicopters and the rockets constitutes the space crafts1.
PROJECT AIMS
The engineering concept of the flight is technically covered in the aerospace engineering.
This branch of engineering has been subdivided into aeronautics which focusses on the study
of the vehicles that travel in the air, astronautics that focuses on the study of the vehicles that
travel through the space and finally ballistics that deal with the study of the projectile
motions2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Mechanical flight
This refers to the use of the machines to facilitate the flight. The commonly used machines
include the aircrafts such as the airplanes, airships, helicopters as well as the spacecrafts. The
other forms of the mechanical flight are the para-sailing where the parachute like objects is
moved through pulling using boats.
The groups of the living organisms that can fly normally uses powered flights like for the
cases of the birds, bats and the insects of the species of the insects that can fly uses
aerodynamic models that creates a leading-edge vortex that is common in most of the insect

in deed. The flying frogs use their much enlarged webbed feet to facilitate their movements.
The flying snakes use mobile ribs to flatten their body parts into a shape that allow
aerodynamic movements
METHODOLOGY
Buoyant flight
Humans have managed to build very light vehicles of the air that can take off from the
ground as a result of buoyancy in the air3. An aerostat is a system that has been thoroughly
utilised through buoyancy in which the aircraft is given the same density as the air. The
aerostats include those free balloons, the moored balloons and the airships. The main
component of an aerostat is the envelope which is a very lightweight skin enclosing a volume
of the lifting gas thereby providing buoyancy to the attached component.
Aerostats are called so since they use the aerostatic lift. Aerostatic lift refers to a buoyant
force that does not require lateral movement through the surrounding mass of air to facilitate
the flight. The air pressure acting up against an object in air normally goes higher than the
pressure that is pushing down on the very object. The buoyancy in whichever case equals the
weight of the displaced fluid. This is in accordance with the principles of the Archimedes.

1
Aerodynamic flight
In the aerodynamic flights, there are powered flights and the unpowered flights. Some of the
objects that that fly do not necessarily generate the propulsive thrust through the air e.g. the
flying squirrel. This is normally referred to as the gliding4. Others may utilise the air rising in
order to climb e.g. the raptors. Many birds and other powered aircrafts need a source of
propulsion so as to climb. This is why they are called the powered flight.
1 L. Ma and A. Chan, In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and
Pattern Recognition, 2015, pp. 3689-3697
2 A. Golovko, et al., Cracking of heavy oils using catalytic additives based on coal fly ash
ferrospheres. Catalysis in Industry, 2015, 7(4), pp.293-300
3 M. Van der Mark, Light is heavy. arXiv preprint arXiv:1508.06478, 2015
4 B. Chandrasekaran and J. Conrad. Human-robot collaboration: A survey. In SoutheastCon
2015, 2015 , April, pp. 1-8. IEEE

Aerodynamic lift is created by the movement of the objects of the aerodynamic through the
air. The design of the object is in such away as to deflect air. In order to have a sustained
level flight and straight flight, the provided lift must be equal and directly opposite to the
weight of the object5. In comparison, long and narrow wings are capable of deflecting a large
a mount of air at relatively low speed as opposed to the smaller wing that need a higher
forward speed to deflect an equal amount of the air thereby generating the required lift. The
large aircraft cargoes use longer wings assisted with the higher angles of the attack. The
supersonic aircraft utilises the short wings and rely much on the high forward speed to assist
in the generation of the lift.
DISCUSSIONS AND RESULTS
GRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF FLIGHT

The effects of the friction that the flying objects experiences while in the motion significantly
increases as the flying hours increases. This is evident as per the graphical analysis of the
flying object.
QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
2
APPLICATIONS
25 A. Romay, et al., Achieving versatile manipulation tasks with unknown objects by
supervised humanoid robots based on object templates. In Humanoids, 2015, November, pp.
249-255
6 B. Kirk, et al., Waveform design for cognitive radar: target detection in heavy clutter.
In Radar Sensor Technology XX, 2016, May, Vol. 9829, p. 98290Q. International Society for
Optics and Photonics
7 C. Hajiyev, H. Soken and S. Vural, Introduction to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. In State
Estimation and Control for Low-cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 2015, pp. 1-7. Springer,
Cham

The floating of the big ships in the water bodies is based on the Archimedes’ principle. Most
fish also float on water in accordance with the Archimedes principle6. The buoyant force
enables the balloon to float in the air.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, many things can actually fly ranging from the natural aviators like the birds,
insects and bats. The human invention such as aircrafts which includes airplane, balloons,
helicopters and the rockets constitutes the space crafts.

REFERENCES
Ma, Z., Yu, L. and Chan, A.B., 2015. Small instance detection by integer programming on
object density maps. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern
Recognition (pp. 3689-3697)
Golovko, A.K., Kopytov, M.A., Sharonova, O.M., Kirik, N.P. and Anshits, A.G., 2015.
Cracking of heavy oils using catalytic additives based on coal fly ash ferrospheres. Catalysis
in Industry, 7(4), pp.293-300
Van der Mark, M.B., 2015. Light is heavy. arXiv preprint arXiv:1508.06478
Chandrasekaran, B. and Conrad, J.M., 2015, April. Human-robot collaboration: A survey.
In SoutheastCon 2015 (pp. 1-8). IEEE
Romay, A., Kohlbrecher, S., Conner, D.C. and Von Stryk, O., 2015, November. Achieving
versatile manipulation tasks with unknown objects by supervised humanoid robots based on
object templates. In Humanoids (pp. 249-255)
Kirk, B.H., Narayanan, R.M., Martone, A.F. and Sherbondy, K.D., 2016, May. Waveform
design for cognitive radar: target detection in heavy clutter. In Radar Sensor Technology
XX(Vol. 9829, p. 98290Q). International Society for Optics and Photonics
Hajiyev, C., Soken, H.E. and Vural, S.Y., 2015. Introduction to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
In State Estimation and Control for Low-cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (pp. 1-7). Springer,
Cham

GLOSSARY
ANGLE OF ATTACK-An acute angle at which a moving air foil meets the airstream
FLIGHT LEVEL-A level of the constant atmospheric pressure in reference to the datum of
approximately 29.29
LIFT-a force that is exerted on the top of a moving air foil as the low-pressure area which
results into the rise of the wing form.
THRUST-opposite of drag