Gliding flight is heavier-than-air flight without the use of thrust. It is employed by gliding animals and by aircraft such as gliders. The most common human application of gliding flight is in sport and recreation using aircraft designed for this purpose. However almost all powered aircraft are capable of gliding without engine power. As with sustained flight, gliding generally requires the application of an airfoil, such as the wings on aircraft or birds, or the gliding membrane on gliding possum. However, gliding can be achieved with a flat (uncambered) wing as with a simple paper plane, or even with card-throwing. The term volplaning has been used for this mode of flight.
Read more about Gliding Flight: Forces, Lift To Drag Ratio, Drag, Glide Ratio, Examples, Importance of The Glide Ratio in Gliding Flight, Soaring
Famous quotes containing the words gliding and/or flight:
“One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“Its shrill scream seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar of the sea in its wings. There is the tyranny of Jove in its claws, and his wrath in the erectile feathers of the head and neck. It reminds me of the Argonautic expedition, and would inspire the dullest to take flight over Parnassus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)