On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:13:03 GMT, Jose
wrote:

"When an aircraft with dihedral rolls so that one wind is lower than the
other, the lower wing will have more effective lift than the raised wing
because it is not tilted from the horizontal as much. The imbalance in lift
tends to raise the lower wing and restore level flight."

I used to think that, but it was pointed out that the issue isn't
"raising the wing" as "rotating the aircraft" and that the higher wing
still has a moment that will tend to rotate the aircraft.

Try both. The lower wing is trying to come back up as it has move
vertical component of lift than the other wing. The higher wing has
more lift in the direction of the lower wing so the plane will start
to turn that direction at the same time.

If you don't believe me, Get in the back seat of a Bonanza on a day
with lots of thermals. It doesn't have to be a V-tail, the F33 will
do the same thing. As the seat is behind the center of lift you get
some strange and exaggerated sensations and a high barf factor.

OTOH it makes the plane quite stable for the pilot even though it has
a wing loading on par, or slightly less than some Cherokees.

Cherokees which have a lot of dihedral also do pretty well on the
bumps and do not have quite the barf factor of the Bo's rear seat.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Jose