airfoil: (in aeronautics) The surface of a wing, aileron or other structure that has been designed to help lift or control an aircraft by making use of natural air currents.
angle: The space (usually measured in degrees) between two intersecting lines or surfaces at or close to the point where they meet.
birds: Warm-blooded animals with wings that first showed up during the time of the dinosaurs. Birds are jacketed in feathers and produce young from the eggs they deposit in some sort of nest. Most birds fly, but throughout history there have been the occasional species that don’t.
colleague: Someone who works with another; a co-worker or team member.
component: Something that is part of something else (such as pieces that go on an electronic circuit board or ingredients that go into a cookie recipe).
drag: A slowing force exerted by air or other fluid surrounding a moving object. It involves friction. But unlike simple friction, it increases with an object’s speed.
engineer: A person who uses science and math to solve problems. As a verb, to engineer means to design a device, material or process that will solve some problem or unmet need.
flaps: These devices are attached to the back edge of an aircraft’s wing. They increase the lift force on a wing in addition to a frictional drag force (which can be especially useful at low speeds, such as in landing).
force: Some outside influence that can change the motion of an object, hold objects close to one another, or produce motion or stress in a stationary object.
lift: An upward force on an object. It may occur when an object (such as a balloon) is filled with a gas that weighs less than air; it can also result when a low-pressure area occurs above an object (such as an airplane wing).
maneuver: To put something in a desired or necessary position by using one or more skilled movements or procedures.
model: A simulation of a real-world event (usually using a computer) that has been developed to predict one or more likely outcomes. Or an individual that is meant to display how something would work in or look on others.
plumage: A term for the collection of feathers covering a bird. A single large feather may be called a plume.
pressure: Force applied uniformly over a surface, measured as force per unit of area.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: A prestigious journal publishing original scientific research, begun in 1914. The journal’s content spans the biological, physical and social sciences. Each of the more than 3,000 papers it publishes each year, now, are not only peer reviewed but also approved by a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
resistance: (in physics) Something that keeps a physical material (such as a block of wood, flow of water or air) from moving freely, usually because it provides friction to impede its motion.
scenario: A possible (or likely) sequence of events and how they might play out.
wind tunnel: A facility used to study the effects of air moving past solid objects, which often are scale models of real-size items such as airplanes and rockets. The objects typically are covered with sensors that measure aerodynamic forces like lift and drag. Also, sometimes engineers inject tiny streams of smoke into the wind tunnel so that airflow past the object is made visible.