What flying games can teach us about physics?

Gaming is always fun and today’s games are packed with facts and learning opportunities apart from that key objective of entertainment. Games can teach us many things – history, politics, strategic decision making and much more. But when it comes to pure science, gaming can also be a good tool for effective learning. That’s because the complexities of scientific endeavors could be understood with ease through delightful gaming experience (Gee, 2007).

Sometimes we don’t even notice that the video game we’re playing is just enriching us with knowledge on a particular scientific theory or providing us with a greater understanding of some delicate scientific innovations. As we continue our missions on that particular game, our knowledge base strengthens; making the whole gaming experience far more valuable than just playing. For instance, while playing with flight simulators, we can learn flight physics – to some extent.

Seems a bit of an out of the box concept, right? Well, let me explain this to you with flying games and how can they teach us about flight physics. If you play flight simulation games like Microsoft Flight Simulator X or X Plane 10, you’ll learn flight physics subconsciously (Microsoft.com, 2015). These games resemble actual flight physics and while piloting a plane, you’ll follow the four aerodynamic forces of flight. You’ll learn that your plane has to defeat gravity (resembled by weight-the first force related to flight) and the force that could do that is lift – the second force involved in flight (Torenbeek and Wittenberg, 2009). Now, the heavier your plane is, the more lift you’ll require to sustain the weight and exceed the gravitational force (read weight!). How would you do that? Well, you’ll need an airfoil that’ll allow the air to pass quickly on top of the airfoil than that of the bottom. As the fast flowing air reduces the air pressure on top of the airfoil, the air pressure beneath it will be considerably higher to create the lift. It should be noted that this mechanism of lift is famously defined by the Bernoulli and Continuity equations (Web.mit.edu, 2015).

As you’ve already learned about lift, it’s time to learn drag – the third force involved in flight. In the simplest term, drag is the resistance that a flying object faces from the surrounding air flow (Tennekes, 2009). When you try to fly a plane you’ll have to create lift by quickly passing air over the airfoils. While doing that, it’s obvious that your aircraft will face air resistance aka drag. The solution? Thrust – the final force that’ll counter drag and effectively move your aircraft forward, which in effect, will create subsequent lift that’ll allow you to fly (Ucmp.berkeley.edu, 2015).

Thus, flight simulators could help you to understand flight physics. But remember, these are not learning equipment but mere games – created for 100% fun. So, you’ll have to unleash that curious mind of yours to the relentless hunt of knowledge if you want to reap the benefits of in-game learning.  And it would be indefinitely awesome if you spend some of your time in exploring the scientific rationale (i.e. Newton’s Law of Motion) behind flight.

Apart from the flight simulators, there are warplane fighting games like War Thunder or World of Warplanes. As these games are not designed to provide the player with the virtual experience of flying a plane, the players shouldn’t look forward to having the basic concepts of aerodynamics from these games. Rather, they could get a quick understanding of the history of warplanes and air fights while playing these. Also, these games can function as a good starter, enhancing the gamer’s curiosity about flight physics and leading the gamers towards further study.

So, it’s evident that flying games like flight simulators can teach gamers about flight physics to some extent. But for having a crystal clear understanding of the concepts and fulfilling the learning, the gamer must go through further reading and study.

References

Gee, J. (2007). Good video games + good learning. New York: P. Lang.

Microsoft.com, (2015). Information for Real-world Pilots. [online] Available at: https://www.microsoft.com/Products/Games/FSInsider/product/Pages/InfoRealworld.aspx [Accessed 21 Dec. 2015].

Tennekes, H. (2009). The simple science of flight. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Torenbeek, E. and Wittenberg, H. (2009). Flight physics. Dordrecht: Springer.

Ucmp.berkeley.edu, (2015). Basic Flight Physics. [online] Available at: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/flight/physics.html [Accessed 21 Dec. 2015].

Web.mit.edu, (2015). Theory of Flight. [online] Available at: http://web.mit.edu/16.00/www/aec/flight.html [Accessed 21 Dec. 2015].