Flight

Bird flight

A hummingbird in flight

An airship flies up because the upward force is equal or greater than the force of gravity.

Flight or flying is a process of movement of an object in a gaseous environment or a vacuum. In practice this means it moves through the air.

Animals

Best adapted for long controlled powered flight are flying birds and insects, bats (Chiroptera), and the extinct pterosaurs.

All of these animals use (or used) the aerodynamic principles of flight, using the load-bearing properties of the wing for active flight. There are also many animals that glide and parachute flight, such as some spiders' webs, aeroplankton, flying clams, flying fish, and various forest-dwelling mammals and reptiles.

The fastest flying animal is the peregrine falcon. The speed of its dive is over 370 kilometres per hour (230 miles per hour).

Floating flight

An aerostat is a system that remains in the air by the use of floating. Man-made aerostats include balloons and airships. An aerostat's main structural component is its envelope, a lightweight skin containing a lifting gas to provide floating, to which other parts are attached. By contrast, aerodynes use aerodynamic lift, which requires the movement of the aircraft through the surrounding air mass.

There are a huge number of plants which distribute their spores or seeds by air. Many bacteria and viruses do so as well. With these very small objects, the surface area is great in proportion to its weight. That is why they lift off.

Flight Media

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  Natural flight by a brown pelican

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  Human-engineered flight: a Royal Jordanian Airlines Boeing 787

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  Mallard (Female), Burnaby Lake Regional Park (Piper Spit), Burnaby, British Columbia

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  Tau Emerald (Hemicordulia tau) in flight in Swifts Creek, Victoria. Specimen is approx 45mm in length.

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  Nestor notabilis, A Kea flying in its natural environment on "The Remarkables" near Queenstown, New Zealand.

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  Mechanical flight: A Robinson R22 Beta helicopter

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  The International Space Station in Earth orbit

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  Lighter-than-air airships are able to fly without any major input of energy

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  Main forces acting on a heavier-than-air aircraft