ON THE PHYSICS OF FLIGHT

Emil Marinchev* Dian Geshev Ivan Dimitrov Stoil Donev** Ivaylo Nedyalkov*

emar@tu-sofia.bg dgeshev@aero.tu-sofia.bg idimitrov@aero.tu-sofia.bg sdonev@inrne.bas.bg inedialkov@tu-sofia.bg

Department of Air Transport, Technical University-Sofia, 1000, Bulgaria

*
Department of Applied Physics, Technical University-Sofia, 1000, Bulgaria
**
Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy,Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, 1784, Bulgaria

Abstract
A universal explanation of the physics of flight, regarding it as a case of reactive motion,
caused by the interaction of flying objects and airflow, is presented. The results obtained
are exact and valid for all kinds of flying objects in real 3-dimensional fluid. They
constitute, on one hand, a good complement to the Kutta-Joukowski theorem and, on the
other hand, a generalization of this theorem is derived for low-viscosity real fluid.

Key words: physics of flight, lift, drag, Magnus effect, Kutta-Joukowski theorem.
 1. Introduction
For more than 100 years the Kutta-Joukowski theorem is used successfully by aeronautical
engineers for subsonic flights [1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 15]. A basic disadvantage of using this theorem is
that it considers the case of ideal fluid, while any flight is performed in a real fluid. The aim
here is to reconsider the lift problem in the case of a real fluid making use mainly of the
conservation laws.
The following theorems from Mechanics are used:
- The momentum of a mechanical system p is equal to the momentum of the center of
masses pc
p = p c = mv c ,
where m is the mass of the system, and vc - the velocity of the mass center.
- The reactive force R is determined by the action of momentum flow mu ( m is mass flow,
and u is the change of its velocity)
R = mu .
 2. Physics of flight
Air flow, interacting with the wing is diverted at an effective angle α (Fig. 1) [5, 6, 10,
11, 12, 13]. It is equal to the effective angle of attack for the entire wing.

Fig. 1

The mass flow interacting with the flying object is denoted by | m |. The diverted mass
flow, leaving the wing is m < 0 , and the incoming flow is −m > 0 . As the air flow follows the
shape (curvature) of the wing, the mass flow m is proportional to the streamlined surface of
the wing S w , the velocity of the airflow v ( v ≡ vc ), and air density ρ - m ∼ ρ v Sw . If S w is
expressed by the wing planform area S , we get m = Cρ v S , where C is a coefficient of
proportionality.
The resulting aerodynamic force R acting on the wing, is due to the joint action of the
incoming and diverted momentum flows:

(1) R = −mv + m( v + u ) = mu .

Consider a flight with a constant velocity v in a low-viscosity real fluid. Neglecting losses
of energy leads to v + u ≈ v , and u = 2 vsin ( α 2 ) (Fig. 1). Than from expression (1) it follows

ρ v2
(2) R = Cρ v S 2 v sin ( α 2 ) = 4C sin ( α 2 ) .S .
2

The vector u is represented by its normal and parallel components with respect to the
incoming flow:

u⊥ = vsin α
 u = v− v cos α
α v 2
= v(1 − cos α) = 2 vsin 2 ≈ α.
2 2
For the lift L and the drag D (Fig. 1) and their dimensionless coefficients C L and C D we
derive
ρ v2 L
L = mu⊥ = 2C sin α S CL = = 2C sin α
2 S ρ v2 / 2
(2') (2′')
ρ v2 D
D = mu ≈ C α 2 S CD = ≈ Cα 2
2 Sρ v / 2
2

Taking into account the loss of energy leads to: first, v ' =| v + u | < v (Fig. 2), second, the
angle between R and L increases (α′ > α/2):