Interesting facts Airplanes

Here's a true story about the power of jet engines. In May 2000 a chartered jet carrying the New York Knicks basketball team taxied too close to a line of cars parked on the tarmac. The blast from the taxiing jet flipped head coach Jeff Van Gundy's car into the air and over three other cars, completely demolishing it!

Airplanes have wings to lift them up into the sky. On the rear side of each wing is a part that moves up and down called an aileron. Ailerons help the airplane turn right or left. Flaps help the airplane fly slowly for landing.

The tail that sticks straight up like a shark's fin has a part called the rudder. The rudder helps turn the nose of the airplane right or left.

Concorde, which was retired from service in 2003, is the fastest commercial airplane. It travels over 11 miles above the earth - so high that you can see the curve of the earth!

Since the wings on an airplane don't move up and down like a bird's wings do, something has to make the airplane go forward. That's where the engine and the propeller come in. The engine turns the propeller and the propeller pulls (or in some cases pushes) the airplane through the sky.

Did you know that the body of an airplane is called the fuselage. This includes the cockpit, where the pilot sits during the flight.

The Wright brothers first tested their flying machines in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

The President of the United States flies in a plane called Air Force One. The plane has a bedroom, bathroom, exercise room and an office for the President, and can be re-fueled in the air so that it never has to land to get gas!. Air Force one also has 85 phones, 17 TV's and 238 miles of wiring for all of the needed technology.

A Boeing 747-400 has 6,000,000 parts.

The tail height of a Boeing 747-400 is equivalent to a six-storey building!