[komodus]

Things fly because of thrust, not wings. Rockets, missiles, don't have wings and yet they still fly even longer distances. Shut the engines of a 747 and it will fall like a rock, no matter how perfect the airfoils.

Bernoulli and Coanda are important but without thrust/velocity there is no lift

[travisjungroth]

A 747 won’t fall like a rock. It will glide.

[rjmunro]

You can't say that without mentioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_009

Where the pilot said what is probably the most British thing ever said in history:

> Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem.

> All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going

> again. I trust you are not in too much distress.

[tstrimple]

Just in case folks don't click on the link, it was a safe landing and everyone survived. It turns out modern planes can glide quite well.

[kqr]

This is a very important point.

The key difference is that a rock (like any ballistic projectile) accelerates until terminal velocity. In contrast, a 747 (like any airplane) descends with a constant vertical velocity when they lose power.

[hex4def6]

The engineers at Boeing are going to be really embarrassed once someone tells them they don't actually need to put wings on their aircraft...

[signa11]

not to mention authors of rfc-1925 as well :o)