What is drag force?
A drag force is a force that opposes an object’s motion through a fluid. Like sliding friction, drag always pushes the object in the direction opposite its motion though the fluid. Air resistance is really a drag force. You feel drag pushing you backward when you ride a bicycle fast. You also feel drag when you hold your hand out the window of a fast-moving car—it pushes your hand toward the back of the car and in the direction opposite your hand’s motion through the air. If you were to fall downward, you would feel a drag force upward, in the direction opposite your motion through the air. And leaves experience a drag force when wind blows on them—pushing them downwind and in the direction opposite their motion through the air (they are moving upwind through the air, so it pushes them downwind). Incidentally, the object pushes back on the fluid with drag force, too, and this force on the fluid pushes the fluid in the direction opposite its motion past the object. This force tends to stop moving fluids and to turn their kinetic energies into thermal energy.