News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
Weight and weight balance is a big deal for aircraft stability. For example, a bunch of weight in the back of the plane will cause it try to pitch up more, which can matter quite a bit when landing.
Don't they have sticks for that up front?
I think it can be compensated for to some small degree. But... A deeper explanation is needed.
A plane has a center of mass (or gravity) which is the gravity balance point of the plane. It also has a center of lift which is like the center of gravity but for the lift force of the wing. See pic:
If the center of lift and center of gravity aren't in the same horizontal location along the length of the plane, the plane has a net force that rotates the nose up or down.
It's like if you had a yard stick and balanced it on your finger. And then added a weight somewhere between your finger and one end. The yard stick will start to rotate (tilt).
The horizontal stabilizer applies a force as well, and it is trimmed to balance the other forces and set the angle of attack (pitch) of the plane. The elevator allows momentary adjustment of pitch.
I may not describe this perfectly but... When a plane has too much weight towards the rear, it will be unstable (and dangerous) to fly. When a plane has too much weight towards the nose it will be somewhat sluggish but stable.
Balancing nose heavy is preferable to tail heavy in general due to the stability issue. A little bit of tail heavy is a bit dangerous and a bit of nose heavy is no big deal. I think another factor is that the tendency of a plane to pitch up could result in aerodynamic stall (loss or lift). Of course, if a plane is too nose-heavy, you can't climb.
Front to back balance is really important to how the plane handles. Side to side balance matters but in terms of passengers / cargo, they're more narrowly distributed about the center of the plane compared to their distribution front to back.
https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/performance/what-effect-does-center-of-gravity-have-on-your-airplane-performance/
Oh man I was just trying to make a pithy comment, now you have me actually learning stuff?
Other problem is that a weight shift has to be countered with elevator trim, which can increase aerodynamic drag and therefore fuel consumption.