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Q:
When an airplane increases its angle of attack, why and how does the pressure gradient increase towards the trailing edge?
A:
Increasing the angle of attack will speed up the velocity of the flow on the leading edge (front of the wing), which is where the big pressure changes are taking place. The pressure will then slowly increase downstream as it moves over the top of the airfoil, and be highest at the trailing edge, where the the air above meets the higher pressure air from under the wing.
As the plane's angle of attack is increased, the pressure gradient at the leading edge will increase until stall is reached.
Posted on July 9, 2013 at 3:52 am
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