Skip to content
Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Phoenix, AZ

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 — read by families in Phoenix, AZ.
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.

You can love planes in Phoenix.

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 — read by families in Phoenix, AZ.
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

The Phoenix–Mesa–Chandler, AZ metro area has about 5,228,938 residents, ranking 10th in the country. Somewhere in that number is a kid who lights up about planes and has never met another one.

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

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Phoenix, AZ →

Love something else too

A FreeFly Alta X quadcopter drone hovers in the air during wildfire response flight tests near Redding, California. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Drones" page — read by families in Phoenix, AZ.Why I love dronesTwelve gold-coated hexagonal mirror segments of the James Webb Space Telescope installed side by side on the telescope's backplane at Goddard. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Telescopes" page — read by families in Phoenix, AZ.Why I love telescopesThe Cold Atom Laboratory, two white equipment containers packed with lasers and vacuum hardware, on a bench before flight. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Physics" page — read by families in Phoenix, AZ.Why I love physicsFive labeled water-quality sample bottles lined up in a bag, ready to be carried to the laboratory for analysis. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Chemistry" page — read by families in Phoenix, AZ.Why I love chemistryA Keyence optical microscope set up on a laboratory bench with its monitor and sample stage. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Microscopes" page — read by families in Phoenix, AZ.Why I love microscopesAn optical bench in the Laser Optics Laboratory at Ames Research Center, crowded with mirrors, lenses and beam paths. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Lasers" page — read by families in Phoenix, AZ.Why I love lasersThe last of four gold solar array wings is lowered into place on the Orion spacecraft's European Service Module. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Solar Power" page — read by families in Phoenix, AZ.Why I love the sunTwo large gantry 3D printers extrude curved concrete walls of subscale habitat structures side by side at NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love 3D Printing" page — read by families in Phoenix, AZ.Why I love 3D printers

Near Phoenix

Why I love planes, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Phoenix