Swept Wing Aerodynamics: Understanding Airflow at High Speeds #shorts

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Here's your swept wing, right? Here's the air as it comes over the wing.

[00:00:04]Right? And then what ends up happening is really what you care about is the air that's going over top of the wing that's normal to the chord line of the wing itself. You know what I mean when I say chord? Right? Just like this imaginary line. So, on a Hershey bar wing, all of that air hits the wing and it goes directly over top of that chord line of the wing. So, like when we talked about over here, the wings have camber.

[00:00:27]So, what happens to the air as it goes over top of any wing, doesn't matter if it's a fighter wing or whatever else.

[00:00:32]But, what what happens to the velocity of the air as it goes over top?

[00:00:36]Goes faster, right? So, if I'm already going fast and air hits my wing and goes over top of my wing and goes faster than the rest of the airplane, that's going to cause a problem when you get to very high speeds approaching Mach