At-Home STEM: Bernoulli vs. Coanda

This week we’re looking at different aspects of flight and ways that we can explore those at home. We’ll start with lift and how air flow helps things like planes get off the ground.

You may have watched a bird flying across an open area and noticed that sometimes the bird flaps its wings and other times it glides with wings stretched out. The flapping helps the bird move forward faster, while the gliding tends to involve more motion up and down in the air column. Airplanes use the same method for flying- engines move the plane forward while the wings influence movement up and down. So, how does a plane get off the ground?