What type of drag increases with airspeed?

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Prepare for the Theory of Rotary Wing Flight Test. Sharpen your skills with flashcards and multiple choice questions, with hints and explanations for each. Ace your exam with confidence!

Multiple Choice

What type of drag increases with airspeed?

Explanation:
Parasite drag is the drag that grows as you fly faster. It comes from all sources that aren’t directly producing lift—form drag from the aircraft’s shape, skin friction from air sliding over surfaces, and interference between components. These effects scale with the square of airspeed, so doubling speed makes parasite drag roughly four times larger. By contrast, induced drag (drag from generating lift) actually decreases with speed because higher airspeed reduces the wingtip vortices needed to produce the same lift. Skin friction is a component of parasite drag, and profile drag is also part of that same family, but the overall category that increases with airspeed is parasite drag.

Parasite drag is the drag that grows as you fly faster. It comes from all sources that aren’t directly producing lift—form drag from the aircraft’s shape, skin friction from air sliding over surfaces, and interference between components. These effects scale with the square of airspeed, so doubling speed makes parasite drag roughly four times larger. By contrast, induced drag (drag from generating lift) actually decreases with speed because higher airspeed reduces the wingtip vortices needed to produce the same lift. Skin friction is a component of parasite drag, and profile drag is also part of that same family, but the overall category that increases with airspeed is parasite drag.

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