What Are Those Weird Things Under Airplane Wings? Every Moving Part, Explained

What are those weird things under airplane wings? Sit over the wing on any landing and it looks like it's falling apart: the back edge slides out, gaps open, the front droops, and panels slam up on touchdown. Underneath hang pointed pods like little canoes. None of it is broken. A wing built to cruise at 520 mph is the wrong wing for landing at 160, so it turns itself into a different wing. We cut it open to see every moving part: Fowler flaps (the inventor paid for the tests himself), the canoes that hide the flap tracks, slats (born from a 1917 crash), Krueger flaps, ailerons (patented in 1868), spoilers, winglets, and how far a wing bends before it breaks. Watch next: How a Crane Climbs a Skyscraper (and How It Gets Down) → [Ep 001 link] Chapters 0:00 The wing that comes apart 0:48 One wing, two jobs 1:36 The obvious fixes that fail 2:31 Flaps 4:05 The canoes (flap track fairings) 5:14 Slats and Krueger flaps 6:29 Ailerons 7:28 Spoilers 8:06 Winglets and the bending wing 9:03 Recap Sources Rudolph, High-Lift Systems on Commercial Subsonic Airliners, NASA CR-4746 (1996) FAA, Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, ch. 6 Flight Controls NASA Glenn Research Center, The Lift Equation Platt, NACA Report 534 (1935): Fowler flaps U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission: High-Lift Devices Boeing patents US 7,300,021 and US 11,192,628 (flap fairings) NASA Spinoff: Winglets Save Billions of Dollars in Fuel Costs 14 CFR 25.303 and 25.305 (ultimate load); Boeing 787 wing load test (2010) SKYbrary: Airbus A320, Ailerons Thingamatics: everything is a clever fix to a problem you never noticed. New episode every week. Narration: AI voice (ElevenLabs). Animation: original, made in Remotion. #aviation #howthingswork #engineering