Winglets Explained

So heres a topic I've wanted to cover for some time but haven't really been confident enough to. It's one I talk about a lot with my friends and one that I think is really interesting.

Have you ever noticed that little upwards pointing bit at the end of the wings on most planes? Well that "bit" has a name! It's called a winglet! Yeah... not much of a surprise was that? Either ways, they're an incredibly useful addition to wings that help increase efficiency by a fair bit.

Firstly, how wings work - and I won't go too in-depth as I'm probably going to cover this soon in a separate post (once that post goes live, you can find it here). Wings essentially work by generating low pressure above the wing and high pressure beneath it. The high pressure air wants to go towards the low pressure air above, but since the wing is in its way, it pushes against the wing and pushes it upwards. (Yes I know it's more complex than that, but that's all we need to know for this topic)

This process isn't 100% efficient though; as, once you near the tip of the wing, the air starts escaping from the side instead of pushing directly upwards. This generates vortices on the tip of the wing that produce induced drag. This in turn increases the fuel consumption and thus the cost to operate the aircraft, a very important statistic for most airlines. To negate this, some aircraft use winglets. Basically what they do is reduce the pressure gradient on the tips of the wings so that less air escapes from the side of the wing. Less air escaping means smaller vortices and smaller vortices means less induced drag. This reduces the fuel consumption, and in turn allows for cheaper, more profitable air travel.

Winglets aren't a particularly big design feature, or one that most people would notice, but it's one that has a huge impact on the performance of the plane.

#Winglets