Flight
Origin
Middle English, from Old English flyht; akin to Middle Dutch vlucht flight, Old English flēogan to fly
Definitions
- 1a : an act or instance of passing through the air by the use of wings <the flight of a bee>
- b : the ability to fly <flight is natural to birds>
- 2a : a passing through the air or through space outside the earth's atmosphere
- b : the distance covered in such a flight
- c : swift movement
- 3a : a trip made by or in an airplane or spacecraft
- b : a scheduled airplane trip
- 4: a group of similar beings or objects flying through the air together
- 5: a brilliant, imaginative, or unrestrained exercise or display <a flight of fancy>
- 6a : a continuous series of stairs from one landing or floor to another
- b : a series (as of terraces or conveyors) resembling a flight of stairs
Description
Flight is the process by which an object moves, through an atmosphere (especially the air) or beyond it (as in the case of spaceflight), by generating aerodynamic lift, propulsive thrust, aerostatically using buoyancy, or by ballistic movement, without direct support from any surface.
Many things fly, from natural aviators such as birds, bats and insects to human inventions such as missiles, aircraft such as airplanes, helicopters and balloons, to rockets such as spacecraft.
The engineering aspects of flight are studied in aerospace engineering which is subdivided into aeronautics, the study of vehicles that travel through the air, and astronautics, the study of vehicles that travel through space, and in ballistics, the study of the flight of projectiles.
