Airplanes

Airplanes
By Leo

As you probably know, there are many types of transportation, and the fastest type of transportation is air travel. Not only is it faster than land and sea travel, but it is also proven to be much safer. In this report, we will be focusing on airplanes.

Airplanes have many purposes. They’re not just for taking passengers to their destination; they are also used for other reasons such as delivering mail or fighting wars. Did you know that some people use planes for doing tricks such as loop the loops or plunging down at a vertical drop and swooping up right before they hit the ground? These people perform their tricks at shows and ride special planes called Acrobats. Other planes are used for fighting wars and battles, like Jump Jets. Jump Jets are planes that need very little runway and can land vertically. Another kind of army jet is an Interceptor. An Interceptor is a plane that finds enemy aircraft and stops them from bombing targets.

There are many different kinds of planes and some of them are really odd like the glider. The glider is a plane that has no motors. Instead, it is towed by another plane, then when let go, it relies on currents of warm air (thermals). Another weird kind of airplane is a commuter airliner. Commuter airliners are smaller than regular passenger planes and travel shorter distances. Commuter airliners typically have engines with six propellers that push the plane forward. This is why they’re called pusher engines. Commuter airliners also have radar in their nose cones, so they can detect weather that’s miles away from them. There are also planes that land on water instead of land. These planes are called seaplanes. Instead of wheels, they have floats so they can float on the water.

There are three main flying instruments on a plane, including:

1. The Air Speed Indicator – this tells the pilot how fast the aircraft is going. It’s kind of like a speedometer on a car except in knots instead of miles per hour or kilometers per hour.

2. The Horizontal Situation Indicator - this picks up navigation beams from its destination and indicates the distance and time it will take to reach the destination.

3. The Attitude Detector – this tells the pilot the difference between how straight the wings are compared to the horizon, so the pilot can match them up.

There are also other instruments such as the compass (it tells the direction the plane is going) and the altimeter (it tells how high the plane is above the ground).

Air travel is getting more advanced everyday. They think that someday people will be able to travel in a plane outside the atmosphere. Wouldn’t that be great?

Citations

Online Resource

“Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI).” Aeronautics Learning Laboratory for Science, Technology, And Research. February 20, 2005. <http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/HSI.htm>.

Books

Dahnsen, Alan. Aircraft. London: Franklin Watts, 1978.

Munro, Bob. Aircraft. Austin: Steck-Vaughn Company, 1994.

Images

Image of animated airplane in upper left corner of page and animated airplane doing the loop-the-loop from "Animation Library" <http://www.animationlibrary.com/> Images free for non-profit and personal use. (January-March, 2005).

Copyrighted images of airplanes from "Microsoft Office Online" <http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/default.aspx?lc=en-us&cag=1> (October-March, 2004-2005). Clip art available only to licensed users for non-commercial purposes.