Audience
Educators
Grade Levels
Grades 9-12
Type
Other Multimedia, Videos
This NASA video segment explores how Newton’s laws can be used to assess an airplane’s cruise performance. By watching an instructor at NASA’s National Test Pilot School, viewers learn how an aircraft’s cruise performance is evaluated and how this performance can be maximized. Viewers also learn how to rearrange the lift and drag equations to find the ratio of the coefficient of lift to the coefficient of drag that will provide maximum performance. Using a graph of these coefficients, the instructor demonstrates how to solve for the maximum endurance speed of the plane and then tests the calculation in an airplane.
Cruise, Lesson 8
Duration: 10 minutes 54 seconds
View on YouTube
More videos and video clips in this series:
Introduction to Newton’s Three Laws, Lesson 1
The Law of Inertia: Newton’s First Law
Force Equals Mass Times Acceleration: Newton’s Second Law
The Law of Action and Reaction: Newton’s Third Law
Weight and Balance, Lesson 2
Lift and Rate of Change of Momentum, Lesson 3
Drag, Lesson 4
Thrust, Lesson 5
Take Off, Lesson 6
Climb and Descent, Lesson 7
The Landing, Lesson 9
The Landing: Approach
The Landing: Flare
The Landing: Rollout
The Landing: Summary
Flight Testing Newton’s Laws Main Page