Is it possible to roll an airplane

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Sign up to receive Popular Science's emails and get the highlights. Like science, tech, and DIY projects? Their wings were wired together in such a way that the outer panels of each wing could be twisted relative to the inner panel. The twisting changed the local angle of attack of sections of the wing which changed the lift being generated by that section. Unequal forces on the wings caused the aircraft to roll. Many modern airliners use a spoiler to roll the aircraft.

A spoiler is a plate that is raised between the leading and trailing edges of the wing. The spoiler effectively changes the shape of the airfoil, disrupts the flow over the wing, and causes a section of the wing to decrease its lift. This produces an unbalanced force with the other wing, which causes the roll. Airliners use spoilers because spoilers can react more quickly than ailerons and require less force to activate, but they always decrease the total amount of lift for the aircraft.

This tilts the nose of the airplane up and down. The Rudder Controls Yaw On the vertical tail fin, the rudder swivels from side to side, pushing the tail in a left or right direction. A pilot usually uses the rudder along with the ailerons to turn the airplane. Learn More Controlling Roll. Controlling Pitch. Controlling Yaw. Ask an Explainer Q:. But if your airplane had a broken jackscrew and dysfunctional horizontal stabilizer, like Whitaker's, inversion could help it regain altitude and slow down; its nose would remain stuck pitched down—but now "down" means up, toward the sky.

You'd want to increase power if needed, flip, and land quickly; once righted, the airplane would jolt earthward again. The reaction speed required to execute all that makes this a true Hollywood feat.

But airline pilots have a long history of remaining cool under pressure. Consider Sully Sullenberger—or Al Haynes, the captain of United Airlines flight , a DC that crash-landed on July 19, , after the catastrophic failure of its tail-mounted engine led to the loss of all hydraulic flight controls.

Haynes and his flight crew used the power of the wing-mounted engines to guide the airplane's descent. On approach, Haynes stayed calm and collected—he even kept his sense of humor. After air traffic control cleared Flight for an emergency landing at Sioux City, he quipped: "Roger. You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh?