Human ingenuity is a marvel of its own. I would say that our gift of ingenuity is the greatest gift that we have as a species. Planes are one of those marvels, to soar through the air like birds. And we just take for granted that they work, 99.9% of the people who fly on planes probably do not know how it works, they just trust our fellow humans know what they are doing.

On first look the principle of flying is similar to birds, long body and wings. But one is made of hollow bones and the other is a big metal machine, so what gives? Turns out they use the same principle, just at a different scale. The two forces they fight are gravity and air resistance.

The aerodynamic body helps both birds and planes cut through the air, birds with their wings spread out and a plane looks very similar flying and cutting through the air. Birds use wings to flap and gain some air whereas the difference with planes here is that they manipulate air pressure with the shape of the wings and the rapid movement forward using their engines.

The air is split at the front of the wings diverting it over and under the wing. The air going over travels faster as compared to the air traveling under the wing, the difference of speed occurs due the shape of the wing, this causes a difference in air pressure as explained by Bernoulli’s law, i.e., the air pressure below is higher than the pressure above the wings which then causes the airplane to get the lift require to fly.