Final answer:
Lift and drag are both affected by factors like airspeed, wing design, temperature, and humidity. These factors impact how air flows over surfaces and influence the aerodynamic forces. For airplanes and skydivers, achieving balance in these forces is critical for performance.
Step-by-step explanation:
In aerodynamics, several factors affect both lift and drag. These factors include airspeed, wing design, temperature, and humidity. Airspeed impacts the airflow around the wing, which directly influences lift and drag. The design of the wing, including its shape and surface characteristics, also significantly determines the aerodynamic forces acting upon it.
Environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity affect air density, which in turn affects lift and drag. Higher temperatures and humidity levels generally reduce air density, leading to decreased lift and increased drag. When it comes to objects like airplanes and skydivers, drag is also influenced by the drag coefficient, which can depend on velocity, but is often considered a constant in simple calculations.
For an airplane, achieving the ideal lift involves complex interactions among these factors, along with other considerations such as weight, altitude, and engine thrust. Similarly, a skydiver reaches terminal velocity when the drag force, which is proportional to the square of the velocity, balances with their weight. The equation used to calculate this is FD=pAv², where 'p' is the air density, 'A' is the cross-sectional area, and 'v' is the velocity.