Editing Flying buttress (section)

== Construction ==
[[File:Die Votivkirche in Wien; Denkschrift des Baucomit'es veröffentlicht zur Feier der Einweihung am 24. April 1879 (1879) (14597612677).jpg|thumb|right|220px|Architectural drawing of a [[Neo-Gothic]] flying buttress for the late 19th-century [[Votive Church, Vienna|Votive Church]], in Vienna]][[Image:Chaddesley Corbett 07.jpg|thumb|185px|A flying buttress as remedial support for a church wall in the English village of [[Chaddesley Corbett]] (note the traditional buttress in the foreground)]]
Given that most of the weight-load is transmitted from the ceiling through the upper part of the walls, the flying buttress is a two-part composite support that features a semi-arch that extends to a massive pier far from the wall, and provides most of the [[Structural engineering|load-bearing capacity]] of a traditional buttress, which is engaged with the wall from top to bottom; thus, the flying buttress is a lighter and more cost-effective architectural structure.

By relieving the [[load-bearing wall]]s of excess weight and thickness, in the way of a smaller area of contact, using flying buttresses enables installing windows in a greater wall surface area. This feature and a desire to let in more light, led to flying buttresses becoming one of the defining factors of medieval Gothic architecture and a feature used extensively in the design of churches from then and onwards. In the design of Gothic churches, two arched flyers were applied, one above the other, in which the lower flyer (positioned below the springing point of the vault) resists the lateral-thrust forces of the vault, whilst the upper flyer resists the forces of wind-loading on the roof.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mark |first1=R. |last2=Jonash |first2=R. S. |title=Wind Loads on Gothic Structures |journal=Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians |volume=29 |issue=3 |year=1970 |pages=222–230 |doi=10.2307/988611 |jstor=988611 }}</ref> The vertical buttresses (piers) at the outer end of the flyers usually were capped with a [[pinnacle]] (either a cone or a pyramid) usually ornamented with crockets, to provide additional vertical-load support with which to resist the lateral thrust conveyed by the flyer.<ref>{{cite book |title=A Dictionary of Architecture |editor-first=James Stevens |editor-last=Curls |year=1999 |publisher=Oxford |page=501 }}</ref>{{blockquote|To build the flying buttress, it was first necessary to construct temporary wooden frames, which are called [[centring]]. The centering would support the weight of the stones and help maintain the shape of the arch until the [[Mortar (masonry)|mortar]] was cured. The centering was first built on the ground, by the carpenters. Once that was done, they would be hoisted into place and fastened to the piers at the end of one buttress and at the [?? of the] other. These acted as temporary flying buttresses until the actual, stone arch was complete.<ref>Alex Lee, James Arndt, and Shane Goldmacher, [http://library.thinkquest.org/10098/cathedrals.htm Cathedral Architecture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050829050213/http://library.thinkquest.org/10098/cathedrals.htm |date=2005-08-29 }}.</ref>}}

;Remedial support application
Another application of the flying-buttress support system is the reinforcement of a leaning wall in danger of collapsing, especially a load-bearing wall; for example, at the village of [[Chaddesley Corbett]] in [[Worcestershire]], England, the practical application of a flying buttress to a buckled wall was more practical than dismantling and rebuilding the wall.
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