Vertical Wing Position
The vertical positioning of the wing changes the roll stability of an aircraft.
- An aircraft with a "high" wing position (i.e., set on top of the fuselage) has a higher roll stability. A Cessna 152 is an example.
- An aircraft with a "low" wing (i.e., underneath the fuselage) has less roll stability. A Piper Pawnee is an example of a "low" wing.
This is commonly explained through the analogy of a pendulum-style effect, but this explanation is incorrect (see Pendulum rocket fallacy). Instead, this effect is due to the aircraft's response to sideslip. An aircraft which is rolled to one side will tend to start to sideslip towards the low side of the airplane. A high wing tends to cause the aircraft to roll away from the sideslip, which tends to level the aircraft. A low wing tends instead to roll into the sideslip, increasing the roll angle and therefore increasing the sideslip further.
Read more about this topic: Relaxed Stability
Famous quotes containing the words vertical, wing and/or position:
“I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“the uncomfortable angels that rot
On the slabs, a wing chipped here, an arm there:
The brute curiosity of an angel’s stare
Turns you, like them, to stone....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“The Americans are violently oral.... That’s why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all—isn’t respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an oral manifestation. They want to get rid of any unpleasantness taken in through the mouth.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)