Re: Does the Thrust need to be greater than the weight?
Okay... I admit it... Im confused!!!
And for the first time since I started aviation.
Nobody has tackled the original question od thrust vs lift.
An aircraft sitting on top of a pole will still be experiencing xxx pounds of force due to gravity, but no work is being done, right?
Same as the walls holding up your roof.
So.. how much work is required to keep an aircraft in flight?
Not the full amount required if it were not moving foward, obviously.
(ie. helicopters, rockets, etc.)
But how much? The faster you go horizontally the less work required to keep it up there?
Technically.. if it isnt getting any higher or lower then there shouldnt be any need for energy to hold it up there at all...
If you went fast enough you would be in the earths orbit... but im guessing it has nothing to do with this, either.
Seems to me its somewhere in between being suspended in the air and being held up there due to thrust....
Is the wing acting almost like a parachute, slowing the fall towards earth to the point where very little energy is required to hold it up there?
Can anyone help me out here?