# Stupid (?) question: How do planes really fly?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-question-how-do-planes-really-fly/1029890
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 7, 2026, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-question-how-do-planes-really-fly/1029890 "2026-05-07T14:37:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 12

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2026, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-question-how-do-planes-really-fly/1029890/12 "2026-05-07T17:28:14Z")

</div>

There’s this:

> [@So how do planes fly (no really)?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-do-planes-fly-no-really/616761):
>
> I’m a pilot and I’ve always been taught the Bernoulli school of flying theory, but have also always understood that Newton’s F=MA feature prominently and simply assumed that they both play their part, be it in different proportions in different flight regimes (subsonic, supersonic etc). Lately, however, I’ve noticed that these two are actually different schools of thought with some going so far as to claim the other is not applicable. Surely this should be easy to test via mathematical modeling?…

And this:

> [@how airplanes fly.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-airplanes-fly/847658):
>
> I read your recent article about how airplanes fly. I want to add my thought. Should we start as follows: A plane is on the runway. Air pressure at 35 pounds per square inch is pushing both up and down on the wings. As the plane accelerates down the runway the configuration and position of the wings (and perhaps the horizontal tail as well) causes the air pressure on top of the wings to gradually diminish until the difference between the air pressure on top of the wings falls ( in pounds pe…

From previous years.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-question-how-do-planes-really-fly/1029890)._