How planes fly: what really keeps them in the air
Too hot to fly: why heat and high airports need longer runways
On a very hot day in 2017, an airline cancelled dozens of flights at Phoenix, Arizona. Nothing was broken on the planes, and the pilots were ready. Why can heat keep a plane on the ground?
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1
Heat is hard on planes. In June 2017, the air in Phoenix, Arizona, reached about 48 °C (119 °F). An airline cancelled dozens of flights of its small jets. Their maker had cleared them to fly only up to 118 °F, a little cooler than that. Heat makes a takeoff harder, and here is why.
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Air is made of tiny bits that move around. When air heats up, it spreads out. So a box of hot air holds fewer of them than the same box of cool air. Hot air is thinner: its density is lower.
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