An excellent way for students to gain a feel for aerodynamic forces is to fly a kite .
Kites can fly because of forces acting on the parts of the kite.
Though kites come in many shapes and sizes, the forces which act on the kite are the same forces that act on an airliner in flight with the exception of thrust. The similarity in forces allowed the Wright brothers to test some of their theories of flight by using a kite in 1900. On this slide we show the aerodynamic equations which would describe the motion of a flying kite. The graphic shows a three dimensional view of the flying kite with the aerodynamic lift and drag shown by the blue vectors. The drag is in the direction of the wind, while the lift is perpendicular to the wind.