Is common air plane flight OU?

[fritznien]

i get about 50 horsepower to keep the plane up.
the question is how much energy does it take to accelerate 2.5 tons of air to produce 2300 pounds of lift.
do the math.

[Pirate88179]

Exactly correct that sailplanes can fly with no engine.  Ultralight planes fly with 25 hp.  This is NOT overunity but known physics that I learned while taking flight training.

The Wright brother's plane flew with about 40 hp and it was very heavy and the airfoils were not as great as they are today.

Airplanes fly due to a combination of Bernoulli and Newrton.

Bill

[Lakes]

Only OU if you keep walking/running

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxu3hYFGT2c

[schuler]

  Hi 

Thank you for all your replies with no exception.

I would like to bring to your attention that faith based argumentation won't convince me. Follows examples that won't change my mind in any direction:

* I have faith that wings do the magic.
* It's not OU due to physics that I've learned but I won't show you my calculation.
* I have faith that OU is impossible.
* I have attended to some cool classes and you should believe me.

fritznien, thank you for starting the debate in terms of numbers. I personally prefer numbers than faith. So, here we go:

http://www.convert-measurement-units.com/convert+Horsepower+to+Kilogram-force+meter.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower

2300 libs = 1043 kg. Therefore, we need 1043kgf to sustain the flight.
1HP = 75kgf m/s .
14HP is approximately 1043kgf m/s. We could say that 14 horses could lift a Cessna... The problem is how efficiently the air plane engine converts its own 210 HP into aerodynamic thrust. The resulting thrust is smaller than the weight making impossible for a Cessna a sustained vertical flight (you can try in any flight simulator). In the case you have never tried, you can try this free flight simulator: www.gefs-online.com/ .

In a sustained horizontal flight, drag compensates thrust and lift compensates weight. So, the resulting force is vectorial ZERO. If the resulting force is zero and lift is bigger than thrust, from where comes the extra force?

Have Fun

[fritznien]

in flight the force to produce lift is part of the drag. by your numbers we have lots of power for lift.
who said anything about vertical flight,the climb rating on a cesna is 1000 feet per min.
from wiki Cruise speed: 122 kn (140 mph; 226 km/h)
or 62 m/s
you have 14 hp for lift 14*75=1050 kg/m
(1050kg/ms)/62ms=72kg rounded off of thrust to keep it in the air.
all thats required for the plane to fly is for the forward speed to be converted to a much slower
downward speed with much larger mass.could that be your 2.5 tons?
looks like a form of leaverage.
if you want details on this you should be in a forum for fluid dynamics.
fritznien