The four forces acting on an aircraft in flight-thrust, drag, lift and weight-are depicted in Figure 1,at right. Not depicted is their relative values, which vary and are always zero when the airplane is in steady, level, unaccelerated flight.Meanwhile, the airplane rotates around the three axes depicted in Figure 2: lateral, longitudinal and vertical. The three primary controls used to adjust the airplane's rotation around these axes: elevators, ailerons and rudder.
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