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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words

Why I love planes

NASA's long-nosed X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft flies over the California desert alongside an F/A-18 chase plane. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Planes" page.
NASA's long-nosed X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft flies over the California desert alongside an F/A-18 chase plane. NASA · Public domain
  • Something that heavy stays up.
  • The shape of the wing is doing the work.
  • A person is flying it and they learned how.

What it really is

A wing moves air so that the air pushes it upward.

Three things to try today

  1. Fold three paper planes with different wings.
  2. Fly each one three times and measure.
  3. Keep the winner and change one fold.
An engineer reaches into a wind tunnel at Ames Research Center to adjust a scale model of an Atlas V rocket with a Starliner capsule. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Planes" page.
An engineer reaches into a wind tunnel at Ames Research Center to adjust a scale model of an Atlas V rocket with a Starliner capsule. NASA · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

Three trials each, then one change. That is a controlled experiment in a hallway.

Why I love planes — 4,299 places across America

Alabama (87)
Alaska (33)
Arizona (43)
Arkansas (86)
California (273)
Colorado (85)
Connecticut (27)
D.C. (1)
Delaware (5)
Florida (158)
Georgia (185)
Hawaii (8)
Idaho (54)
Illinois (155)
Indiana (117)
Iowa (112)
Kansas (116)
Kentucky (129)
Louisiana (81)
Maine (21)
Maryland (35)
Massachusetts (53)
Michigan (120)
Minnesota (111)
Mississippi (88)
Missouri (131)
Montana (61)
Nebraska (97)
Nevada (22)
New Hampshire (13)
New Jersey (45)
New Mexico (40)
New York (90)
North Carolina (127)
North Dakota (57)
Ohio (124)
Oklahoma (88)
Oregon (51)
Pennsylvania (88)
Rhode Island (6)
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (5)
South Carolina (65)
South Dakota (68)
Tennessee (114)
Texas (340)
Utah (48)
Vermont (16)
Virginia (158)
Washington (77)
Washington, D.C. (1)
West Virginia (64)
Wisconsin (95)
Wyoming (25)

Love something else too

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