"Trentus" wrote in message
...
OK, this is going to sound really silly, but I'm not a pilot,
If planes glide so well, then how come they crash?
It would seem reasonable, that if they glide, and they have an engine
failure etc. that they'd glide them in, not leave smoking craters like the
news tends to show.
Am I missing something here?
Apart from your naivete about the broadcast news industry, yes. Very big
planes are very heavy have a big potential energy load and land at speeds
over 100 miles an hour. Very, very hard to make it look pretty on anything
but a long flat surface. Little planes are very light and land at speeds
under 60 miles an hour. Very little energy to dissipate. A pilot current
in forced approaches can land them without much risk of injury anywhere with
a few hundred yards of relatively flat surface or something soft to absorb
the impact.
le moo
|