Nose pitch in flight...
 

Hi ya'll...I was wondering, as i have been for the past 3 years or so, why do the flight attendants have to PUSH their trolleys toward the nose of the a/c and stop them rolling away when facing the tail of the aircraft, as if the nose is constantly 'nose up' during flight? I remember watching a video ages ago about it, but cannot for the life of me remember..
Smooths skies,
Dan :)

In the simplest terms, the nose is pitched up to control the amount of lift produced, therefore controlling altitude. The pitch angle will vary with the power settings, airspeed, altitude and aircraft loading.

Ok, wings generate lift most efficiently when they are at a 4 degree angle to the airflow (angle of attack).
The wing is attatched to the fuselage at about 2 degrees (angle of incidence).
Therefore the fuselage will be tilted nose up by 2 degrees.
Why they dont just make the angle of incidence 4 degrees and have a level fuselage I dont know, but I'm sure there is a reeason!

try taking off with flaps/slats and a mainplane at 4 degree aoi, not very efficient

HPsov,

If the angle of incidence was greater then in order to achieve a satisfactory take off the rotation would have to be different i guess. Dont know about the scarebus but the 757 tail comes scarily close to the ground anyway !! My brain cant work out the angles but i guess that might have something to do with it ??

Or perhaps angle of attack required during take off roll ???

[This message has been edited by expedite_climb (edited 06 January 2001).]