I appreciate you all that have been reading, upvoting and commenting on my post.

In this post, I am going to shed light on the issue of escape velocity and the criteria for achieving escape velocity in relation to why aircraft or an airplane can enter and stay in orbit. Also to really understand the concept of how it is possible for an airplane to enter orbit, we are to understand the nature of forces acting on an airplane and how the airplane achieved escape velocity.

Von Deeday-UK - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0,The aircraft is flying at constant speed

I remembered when we are still little, I and my friends used to imagine how it is possible for an object (airplane) to move in the sky. We use to make hot arguments among ourselves doubting the possibility of an airplane flying in the sky. All little children in our community had a common habit then, we always rush out of our various homes to sing a common song to praise aircraft whenever they fly across our roof because its existence was a misery to us.

On a fateful day, two of our older friends told us conflicting stories about aircraft; one said that thing that flies in the sky is the father and mother to birds we see around that is the reason why they are bigger and they can fly very high in the sky. We tend to believe him due to those facts, even though we can identify a bird but we can not really identify the airplane, we only see it up in the sky.

The other older friend argued, no, it is a lie, that thing (airplane) is different from a bird, he made us understand that aircraft are made by human and it is made to fly through diabolical means controlled by witchcraft, that is the reason why it is named aircraft. That is, aircraft are made by witchcraft. We are confused with these conflicting stories, we don’t know which to believe until we are grown up and we begin to know so facts and working principle of an airplane in our early physics class where we were thought the concept of escape velocity and various types and form of forces.

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Let’s look at the concept of escape velocity

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In a layman language, I will define escape velocity as how fast an object can run the for it to move in an upward direction until it can leave the earth surface and stay in the sky. This occurs in aircraft when it moves with great speed and finally finds its way into the sky. Scientifically, escape velocity is described as the velocity at which an object is projected from the Earth’s surface into orbit when it escapes the influence of gravitational pull. For an object to enter the obit, it must accelerate with a velocity higher than 11.16km/s.

By User:Laniala, Own work, Public Domain

Let me buttress my point with this illustration

When you throw a stone in an upward direction with a certain velocity, it continues to go up with a reducing velocity due to the influence of gravitational pull until the velocity becomes zero. When the velocity of the stone is zero, it experiences a purse (microseconds), then the gravitational force will pull it back to the surface of the earth. If you now increase the velocity at which you throw the stone upward, the stone will cover more distance under the influence of gravity before it returns to the earth. If you continue to increase the velocity each time you throw the stone, it will get to the point when the velocity will be greater that 11.16km/s, when this occurs, the gravitational pull will lose its influence on the stone and the stone will enter and stay in orbit.

Escape velocity can be calculated by the formula V=sqrt (2GM/R ) where M is the mass of the planet, R is the radius of the planet and G is the universal gravitational constant (6.673 x 10^-11Nm²/kg²). With the idea of conservation of energy, the formula can easily be derived when the gravitational energy and kinetic energy of an object is equal to the maximum altitude energy. That is; (+K) + (U) = K + U =0 [at Infinity]
Where K is the kinetic energy and U is the gravitational energy. Since it is at infinity then we have; K= -U where K = 1/2mv2 and U = GMm/R
Therefore, 1/2mv2 = -GMm/R
V= sqrt 2GM/R
With this formula, you can calculate the velocity for an object to escape from Earth into the orbit.

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How is it possible for an airplane to attain an escape velocity?

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By NASA -public Domain

The ability of an airplane to attain as escape velocity and fly through the sky is actually based on laws of physics in relation to these four forces; the lift, weight, thrust. and drag which are the forces experienced by an aircraft.

Let me explain these forces for clearer understanding

Lift is an upward force experienced by objects like helicopters, airplanes, rockets, and birds inclusive. The wings on an airplane are designed to create an upward force (a lift) when it moves with a high speed through the air, also, the fast whirling blades of a helicopter in air create a lift for it. The weight of an aircraft is a function of its mass and influence of gravity. It is a downward force that pulls an object toward the center of the earth. In this study, weight can also be described as a downward force that opposes the lift(an upward force).

A thrust is a force that ensures a forward movement of an object, it’s a force that pushes a flying object forward. A thrust is generated by the mechanical force from the jet engine of propellers of an airplane. A drag is a backward force that acts against a moving object in air. A drag of airplane is caused by the effects of air molecules on the plane. The amount of drag experienced by an airplane depends on the speed and the surface area covered by the airplane, that is a big fast moving airplane will experience more drag, an airplane will experience more drag the helicopter. A drag opposes the thrust force of an airplane.

By Olivier Cleynen - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, A realistic lift distribution over the wing of an aircraft

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Conclusion

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For an airplane to attain an escape velocity so that it can move through the air and enter into orbit, the airplane most possess a greater amount of thrust than drag so that is can speed up, also the lift force must be greater than the weight so that the airplane can go up faster. The lift force and the thrust works relatively to determine if an airplane will move faster to attain escape velocity and move up into the orbit. Once all forces acting on an airplane is balanced, that is, the thrust is equal to the drag force and the lift force is equal to the weight, the airplane can move steadily in a straight line, upward and downward. Escape velocity also finds its application in Satellite installation in space.

Thanks for your time