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Wing Slants  
User currently offline747-600X From United States of America, joined Jan 2000, 2742 posts, RR: 17
Posted (13 years 3 months 2 weeks 5 days 13 hours ago) and read 569 times:

Why do some airplanes have wings which slant steeply upwards as they go out, i.e. 777, and others have wings which are almost perfectly level, i.e. MD-11?


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User currently offlineFlyf15 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR:
Reply 1, posted (13 years 3 months 2 weeks 5 days 12 hours ago) and read 546 times:

The basic rule is as follows: The greater the wing slant (called dihedral), the greater the inherient stability of the aircraft in that axis.

This is hard to explain without diagrams. Imagine a wing that has no dihedral. As the aircraft banks, both wings are producing the same amount of horizontal and verticle lift. Now imagine a wing that has considerable dihedral. As the aircraft banks, the inside (low) wing is more level than the outside (high) wing. Since the inside wing is more level, it produces more verticle lift than the outside wing. Because of this inequality in lift, the inside wing goes back up and the wings become pretty much level again.
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