Parts of an airplane and what they do
Most guides to the parts of an airplane hand you a diagram with twenty labels and leave you there. This one goes the other way: each part, what it is called, and the one job it does.
The four big pieces
Almost every plane ever built is the same four things stuck together.
The fuselage is the body — the long tube. It carries the people and the cargo, and it holds everything else in the right place relative to everything else.
The wings hold the plane up. They do it by pushing air downwards; the air pushes back, and that push is called lift. Everything else on the plane exists to help the wings do this or to steer while they do.
The tail stops the plane wandering. Without it a plane would swap ends like a badly thrown dart. The upright bit is the fin, the flat bits are the tailplane.
The engines pull or push the plane forwards so air keeps flowing over the wings. Gliders skip this part entirely, which tells you it is the least essential of the four.
The parts of a wing
This is where the useful detail lives, and where most people get lost.
Ailerons sit at the outer back edge of each wing and make the plane roll. They work as a pair and in opposite directions: one goes up while the other goes down, so one wing gets more lift and the other less, and the plane tips.
Flaps sit at the inner back edge, near the fuselage. Both go down together. They make the wing bigger and more curved, which means more lift at slow speed — and a lot more drag. This is why they come out for landing and go away again once the plane is up to speed.
Spoilers are panels on top of the wing that stand up to kill lift on purpose. Useful for coming down without speeding up, and for pinning the plane to the runway after touchdown.
Slats are the front-edge version of flaps, letting the wing work at a steeper tilt before the air stops following it.
Winglets are the little upturned tips. Air spills round the end of a wing and wastes energy in a spinning trail; a winglet gets in the way of that and saves fuel.
The parts of a tail
The rudder is the hinged back part of the fin. It swings the nose left and right — but it does not turn the plane the way a car’s steering wheel does. Planes turn by rolling with the ailerons and then curving round. The rudder’s real job is keeping the turn tidy.
The elevator is the hinged back part of the tailplane. It points the nose up and down. It is the control that decides how the wing meets the air, which makes it the most important one there is — see what angle of attack means.
The trim tab is a tiny flap on a control surface that holds it in position, so the pilot is not pushing or pulling the whole flight.
The rest
Landing gear — the wheels, and the legs that soak up the landing.
The cockpit — where the pilots sit.
The propeller, on planes that have one, is a set of small wings spinning very fast. They generate lift sideways, and sideways lift is called thrust.
Which parts a glider does without
A glider has no engine and no propeller. It keeps everything else, and it has enormous wings — long, thin, and far bigger than the aircraft seems to need. That shape is the most efficient one there is for turning height into distance.
That is the whole trade. A glider has no way to make new energy, so it starts high and spends its height to move forward. The only way to get more is to find air that is rising faster than it is sinking.
Skimloft is a free browser game about exactly that trade. No engine, no throttle, one control — hold to lift the nose, let go to drop it. Height is your only fuel, and the rising air is drawn on the screen so you can go hunting for it.
Quick answers
What are the main parts of an airplane? The fuselage, the wings, the tail and the engines.
What are the parts of a wing called? Ailerons for rolling, flaps for slow-speed lift, spoilers for killing lift, slats at the front edge, and winglets at the tips.
What is the difference between flaps and ailerons? Flaps are inboard and move together to add lift. Ailerons are outboard and move in opposite directions to roll the plane.
What does the rudder do? It swings the nose left and right and keeps a turn tidy. It is not how a plane turns.
More: how high planes fly, and what a g force actually is.