✈️ Wing Loading
A plane's weight divided by its wing area. Lower loading flies slower and more forgiving; higher loading flies faster and sinks quicker if the power cuts.
What it actually does
Wing loading is weight divided by wing area — how much load each bit of wing carries. It predicts how an aircraft will feel better than weight alone: low wing loading means slow, floaty and forgiving; high means fast, and needing more speed to stay flying.
In practice
Trainers and gliders are deliberately low. Warbirds and jets are high, which is why they land fast and are unforgiving of getting slow. It is why adding weight to a model matters so much — it raises stall speed and shrinks the margin everywhere.
Worth knowing
When choosing a first aircraft, wing loading tells you more about how hard it will be to fly than the wingspan or the price does.