I agree. Not saying my cfi was bad, he was actually a great and safe instructor, but a lot of times it was the whole... “it’s magic” instead of in depth explanation.
More CFIs need to watch this video. I was use to Archers. Went to a 172 with a CFI. Didn’t get a good explanation of what the difference was gonna be. First time I went to land the 172 I seen the difference immediately. It took me some time to get use to it where I felt comfortable going up solo. Now it doesn’t bother me to go back and forth between them cuz I understand what they are gonna do. But if I would have got this explanation I might have been able to transition a couple of hours sooner.
Excellent video, your understanding is good and I would like to kindly help it. Camber is not chord length nor chord taper nor wing planform. Camber is not angle of incidence or washout. Camber is airfoil profile curvature. Dihedral is not just about static roll stability but two more things: Pilots should understand aerodynamic yaw to roll coupling and how increased dihedral increases the effect of the leading wing seeing more AOA during yaw and producing proverse roll. 2nd, engineers would want you to know that dihedral is used to control dynamic roll center in the vertical axis to eliminate inertial yaw coupling. Yaw coupling is evident when a center of lift is vertically offset from the aircraft C.G. It gets worse with size, mass or wing sweep. This is why a B-52 has anehedral. Keep up the good work. - Thank you kindly for your patience.
I got a little surprise from your video. The Cessna 172 that you have there was the first plane I was flying last year when I started my training (N2458G)
The main differences are in stability and visibility. A high wing aircraft has static stability as the lifting surface is above the center of gravity, but this results in poor visibility as the wing blocks the view in the direction the aircraft is turning. A low wing aircraft has marginal stability, as the center of gravity is above the lifting surface - the aircraft wants to turn over. That is countered by the wings dihedral raising the center of lift in relation to the CG, but too much dihedral lessens effective lift. The advantage is full visibility in the direction of turn, as the wing is down.
This sounds a bit like the pendulum rocket fallacy. Lift is always perpendicular to the lifting surface isn’t it? If that’s the case, your first point should be invalid, since the lift works along the same ‘workline’, ie had the same arm of moment, for both high and low wings. Am I missing something? I’m not an aerospace engineer.
AnneJdeB side slip conditions present during turns cause unequal lift, in high wing planes it tends to right the aircraft. Low wing planes achieve this level of stability with their dihedral.
Yes side slip is the key too dihedral effect, but dihedral effect needs to be in balance with the vertical surfaces esp. tail design, to little diheral effect and you move toward spiral divergence(an increasing sideways dive), too much dihedral effect and you get a dutch roll oscillation.
There is no difference in lateral stability between high and low winged airplanes. I have flown plenty of both and I have been a flight dynamics engineer for 28 yrs. These are typical private pilot ground school wives tales. Pilots teach pilots, the blind leading the blind. I have never flown a low wing airplane with "marginal" stability. My Jodel has excellent lateral stability as the all the RVs, cherokees, cirrus, you name it. To say nothing of all commercial and biz jets.
John I want to say thank you so so much for all your free content and bringing general aviation to the public and really to everybody. Dude-you are the man. Thank you so much❤️
When I did my training I took up what ever was available on the day. Usually PA 28 or C172. I preferred the Piper as I liked the mechanical flap system. Although I also appreciated the Cessna's visibility factor.
When I started my lesson I started in a low wing. Then I went to a high wing. What i learned was low wings you had to fly all the way to the tarmac. I a high wing you land the last ten feet was easer, & dropped easer to the tarmac.
I trained in a 172, and just purchased a cherokee 235, and hell yes you have to fly it all the way down.. none of that cutting to idle at 20 feet once youve made the runway, and gliding in.. anyway, ya you're right
Totally agree with Brian’s comment. I find aviation as a fascinating subject but with so much to learn, intimidating sometimes to learn. Thanks for making the knowledge so accessible,
Glad we could help make this information come by a little easier!! Make sure to check out our website www.fly8ma.com for some more helpful information!
My first low wing was transitioning from C-152/C-172 to a 1968 Piper Arrow. I thought it was miserable because it glided like a rock & was difficult (at first) to land with it's short, stubby "Hershey bar" wings. Then I got into a Beech Debonair & Bonanza & found stability and ease of flying like I'd never experienced. I prefer the visibility of high wing, but those Beechcraft planes are so rock solid, maneuverable & enjoyable in all flight scenarios they're hard to beat.
9:00 Interesting notation that you make here, this explains a lot for me, the ground effect. In this cherokee as you say, once out of ground effect, 'you' might think you're good to go, and go ahead and roll out, yet once you leave that ground effect, if your air speed isn't above STALL SPEED, you're most likely going to crash and burn. I guess part of this supports the rule; ''don't be afraid to use the whole runway'; get that speed up to spec before pretending to be a STOL.
Jon, you are an exceptional wealth of valuable information. The practical application of what you are talking about is something I would bet the majority of buyers don't consider. BTW viewers, if you've not signed up for the Fly8MA courses, you're missing very well-presented information. Thank you for your explanations.
Good video but a camber is not equivalent to thickness. Camber is a measure of the asymmetry between the top and bottom of the airfoil. One way to understand camber line is that the chord line will be equidistant from the top and bottom surface at all points on the airfoil if camber is zero.
Hi, thank you for the video. I also have to agree with Vaibhav, while it's great that you aimed for simplicity at the private pilot level, you've unfortunately defined camber incorrectly. It would be great if you added annotations or something to the video explaining that we should really call it thickness, just so people don't get confused. I do wish there were more references out there like yours though, geared towards helping new pilots understand aircraft performance at a simple level. Cheers and keep up the good work.
Wrong is wrong, using the incorrect terms under the excuse of simplicity just inhibits future learning and spreads ignorance in the community. Dihedral was basically correct, sweep has a similar effect. Twist for stall properties was correct. (though it can be had either mechanically [same airfoil root to tip], or with aerodynamic design [looks flat but the airfoil shape at the root will stall sooner than the tip].) Overall wing shape viewed from above [eg Hershey bar] is called the "planform". planform effects ease of manufacture, drag efficiency, and responsiveness Camber is curve, the term is also used for skis, it is completely independent of thickness. Thickness is called thickness and is expressed as a percentage of cord. The Wright bros plane had high camber and very low thickness. Thickness also effects structural strength and stiffness(bending and twisting) Aspect ratio has nothing to do with the design-speed or total lift, it is a trade off between low induced drag(long is good), strength(short is good), roll rate(short is lower inertia), and for the extremes, transport of parts and space around ground structures. Wingtip devices are used to mod these same traits. The 777 does mach .85 and has a very high aspect ratio and tapered planform, so it wouldn't benefit from winglets, but it is also at the limits of width for most airports, the new 777x actually folds 12 feet of each wing while on the ground.
Yep. Camber is curvature of the wing. The NACA 2412 airfoil on the Cessna 172 actually has more camber than the NACA 65-415 used on the Cherokee. You mean thickness ratio/chord-thickness ratio, or fineness ratio.
I would quibble a little bit on your explanation of dihedral. The reason it promotes stability has more to do with the lift vectors than side slip. The low wing is producing lift at an angle more opposite to the force of gravity and the high wing is having less of an effect against gravity. The asymetric amounts of lift (against gravity) natuarly want to reach a state of equilibrium. Therefore the low wing pulls it self up more than sideslip pushes the high wing down. Think about it. If you are in a coordinated turn there is vertually no side slip but the plane still wants to right itself. Too much dihedral can cause "dutch roll" where the wing lift balance is more sensitive and harder to achieve. Also camber refers to the curvature of the surface of the wing. What you were talking about was airfoil cross/section. Thick vs thin airfoils. Low wings a definately more prone to ground effect lift than high wings. I've been working on airplanes since 1979 and I have picked up a little knowledge along the way.
High wing is by far the best configuration. You can store you lawn tractor and snow blower, etc. under the wing when hangared. Also, high wing is great to sit under for shade when attending those summer fly-ins. 😉
One week prior to my PPL checkride the airplane I had done all my training a C-150 N50400 was involved in an incident with another student pilot which meant it would not be available for my evaluation. The only airplane immediately available was a PA-28. I made the transition in only a couple of flights with my CFI and was successful in my PPL checkride. That was in 1975.
When I transitioned from the Cessna to the Cirrus, I noticed when I entered ground effect. It was a big difference to me to feel when it started to work and would cause float. Changed how I approached flaring
Michael Z high wings use a higher flare height from the experience I’ve had. Usually with the low wing I get to float in ground effect for longer so I delay my flare for longer. Now this can also be due to the fact that the two airplanes have different wing types and approach speeds as well, considering that the Cirrus SR20 is a high performance aircraft and due to its wings shape you must fly it to the numbers. It does not have as good of a glide ratio as the Cessna 172.
Thank you very much for the explanations in this video. As member of a non profit flying club in Martinique FWI, i'm going to show this video for training purpose.
Interesting video. Did my training all in low wing (never been PIC/P1) in a high wing. AA-5B Tiger and Arrow 2 gave me some interesting times during training.
The dihedral for low wing aircraft is an essential element of lateral (and to an extent directional) stability. When a sideslip is induced, the low wing will have a larger angle of attack, leading to greater lift on that wing, making the plane level itself. Similar to the way keep effect works on a high wing plane, hence why they are also very stable. Most low wing GA planes tend to have a very heavy dihedral compared high performance and military airplanes, since GA planes are designed to be very stable for students to learn on.
Thank you, it’s great to get these videos, everyone of your instruction videos is either a great refresher and with this video something I never was taught. Your videos should be wings credited
Good morning, thanks for the valuable information that pleased me. Honestly, you are honest in your business. Of course I am very far from Yemen and I am curious to learn to fly despite my presence in the Middle East
Take a trip to Italy, Germany, France, or Spain and they can teach you. You'll need to pay them up front first and learn all you can. You should be able to get comfortable and knowledgeable enough in 2 months of flying ~3 hours per day to be able to fly a utility type aircraft solo. (172, arrow, etc). Then it's on you to log your hours in the sky and work towards IFR and complex endorsements.
Great video, you're a fantastic orator! One inaccurate point you made throughout the video. Those two Pipers are not equipped with what is colloquially known as "Hershey Bar" wings. If you notice that each wing flares larger at the root, this means that if this aircraft is equipped with an O360 with 180 HP, it is a PA28-181. A comparable Cherokee which is equipped with what are called the Hershey Bar wings is designated PA28-180. You state that these Pipers have short wings, but no where near as short as the Hershey Bar wing variants. They are much shorter and look very much like a chocolate bar when viewed from above without the flare at the root.
when looking from the wing the wing tip, you can see the washo-out and varying angles of incidence ( angle between the chord of the wing and the longitudinal axis of the fuselage). Using the term angle of attack ( angle between chordline and relative wind) can confuse new learners.
We'd recommend the Archer as it is a more stable platform that can handle more wind. You will be able to fly on more days with the archer than the skycatcher.
Thank you I don't have my certificate yet I hope I can get it if I don't crash and burn but these videos are really helping me I appreciate them thank you
I bet the diamond wins the prize for having a wing strike and the shallowest angle of bank. Looks like a long wing with less dihedral. I'm no pilot, but I'm very interested in the subject after having my intro flight in a C152 at a local airport. So awesome!
Camber does not refer to the thickness of the airfoil but rather to how much curve the airfoil has. The piper is closer to a symmetrical airfoil (less camber) and the Cessna has almost a flat bottom to the airfoil.
A low-wing design adds a bit of a barrier between the fuselage and any ground cover should there be an "off airport excursion" into trees or rough terrain in an emergency landing situation.
Dankie/merci FLY8MA. I recall flying from ZU (Zuid-Afrika) to Albion/UK. If you sit next to the wing it is difficult to see below. A High wing is better for inspection of the wing.(???) Also a high wing do not have the "V'-shape. Why? It looks like the high wing is small bit better.. The IKRUS C42 of Germany also with a high wing is popular in South Africa. You don't have them in the US? Next question: A standby engine? What do you do when of if your engine fail? I thinks it is the Cessna 262 that have a pull and push engines. In Europe they have an electric and gas engine in one. If or when the gas fail the electric will help.. Thank you for the informative video.
The main 'piloting' difference is the sight picture and ground effect. A high wing plane gets very little ground effect but is MUCH easier to see down the runway and touch the mains with the nose up. Low wing planes get a lot of ground effect and will tend to float if you pull the nose up too high and too fast and you can't see the ground like you can in a high wing.
You didn't mention a person's perception of build quality, an important factor to me. I've flown Tripacers, Cherokees and Navahos, and for me all the Pipers are like beer cans when compared to Cessnas, for one. I've also flown 140s, 150s, 172s, 182s, 206s, 411s (owned 2), and 421s (owned 4). My takeaway was the Cessnas were Cadillacs compared to Pipers. I'll stress that this was MY perception only, and others will probably feel differently. I also researched accident reports and found some wing spar problems I didn't like with the Pipers. Just more food for thought.
I haven't flown for years I have 1/2 my time on high wing and 1/2 on low wing.most high wing I like was a two door entrance Piper one door was no my favorite the plane I enjoyed flying the most was the Cessna 177 (only about 10 hours) it seemed to be the best of both worlds
The actual flying or piloting planes was always easy for me, it took very little time to learn any of them thus far. Now the legal side of things has always been very hard to learn, I just want to fly period.
another point, for Ground Attack planes, they need high wing to give the pilot better view of the ground. So they can see what they hit or missed. and which way the target escaped.
Basically when the wings are on top it is because the whole structure is built and therefore is suspended from the wings , including tracks for big bombs. In a low wing configuration the whole structure is built upon, on top of the wings. It gets not possible to suspend , to carry and to deploy big bombs because of the engineering of its skeleton structure. You need to perform a double load on the wings by placing the bombs bellow plus the structure on top. Also there is less room away from the wings for gates on the floor of the internal structure.
Why aren't the wings on small planes designed the same way as larger planes where the length is longer at the structure and shorter at the tip? Also what happens if the wings are mounted direct center of the structure instead of at the top or bottom?
At first you say the Cessna wing is straight indicating no Dihedral but later mention is actually does have some. Technically, I believe theirs 3.5 degree Dihedral in the Cessna 172.
Enjoying your instructional videos, well-considered content serving the purpose of helping to instruct the private pilots. Nicely done.Thank you, Sir! :-) Sharing! :-)
You should have included the Sopwith Camel along with the Piper "Hershey Bar" wing. Piper quit making those in 1974 or 5. You do Piper a disservice by not including more than two-thirds of the planes they have ever produced. The "Hersheys" were great planes tough. I have quite a few hours in them and much prefer Piper to Cessna except for the 182RGs and Citations. Awesome planes.
