Avril Poisson wrote:
The Role of Lift Demons and Thrust Pixies in Heavier Than Air Flight
Publication Date: April 2005

Abstract: The role of Lift Demons in aeronautics was first explained
in 1994
by Mary Shafer (NASA). Since then, Shafer's work has been explored
and
revised. This paper summarises advances in Lift Demon technology over
the
last decade.

Keywords: Lift Demons, Thrust Pixies, lemon fondant

Question: How did the secret information on Lift Demons make it into
the
public domain? I've been a practising Aircraft Performance Engineer
for the
past 26 years and have always tried to explain how aeroplanes fly by
using
the official public explanations regarding Bernoulli, airfoils and
other
such rot. Civilians just weren't ready for the truth. In fact, we
generally
don't speak about the magic directly. Most of our plans and estimates
usually end with the phrase "and then a miracle happens".

Answer: The science of Lift Demons was declassified in 1994, throwing
this
topic wide open for discussion and research.

According to Shafer "Lift is caused by Lift Demons. These little,
invisible
demons hold on to the leading and trailing edges of the aircraft and
lift it
into the air by flapping their wings (so, in a reductionist sense,
lift is
actually caused by feathers). Some of the demons are a little
confused and
they hold on backwards, causing drag. The reason that planes stall at
high
alpha is that the leading edge demons get scared and let go when they
can't
see the ground anymore. Lift demons have good taste and don't like to
look
at ugly aircraft, so they hold on backwards on ugly planes. That's
why
gliders have so much lift and so little drag and why F-4s have lots
of
drag." This, however, did not address what gives lift to the Lift
Demons'
wings. Again, according to Shafer "Feathers. The multiple filaments
on
feathers trap the air molecules and they struggle to escape, which
causes
the action-reaction that we call lift. Bat wings don't have feathers
but
they're hairy and that works just about as well (air molecules are a
little
claustrophobic)."

It was originally believed that Lift Demons got their lift from
smaller Lift
Demons whose lift was, in turn, produced by even smaller Lift Demons
leading
to the "Infinite Demons Theory" as proposed by the great Greek
philosopher-scientist Miasma. However, with the revival of scientific
knowledge that eventually ended the Dark Ages, it was realised that
this
situation unresolvable according to Zeno's paradox. The "Infinite
Demons
Theory" works in many problems of engineering significance, however,
real
understanding requires that the ether be introduced into the analysis
at
some point. The "Ether Concept" explains why planes fly more
efficiently at
higher altitudes. This is an absolute necessity when studying orbital
and
interplanetary travel where, it is believed, many of the Lift Demons
are
unable to breathe.

As always the Chinese seem to have been there first. "The Genius of
China",
tells of one Ko Hung. "Someone asked the Master (Ko Hung) about the
principles of mounting to dangerous heights and travelling into the
vast
inane. The Master said "[...] some have made flying cars with wood
from the
inner part of the jujube tree, using ox leather straps fastened to
returning
blades so as to set the machine in motion. Others have the idea of
making
five snakes, six dragons and three oxen to meet the 'hard wind' and
ride on
it, not stopping until they have risen to a height of 40 li (about
65,000
feet). The the ch'i [emanation of the sky or perhaps wind] is
extremely
hard, so much so that it can overcome the strength of human beings.
[=2E..]
Take dragons, for example; when they first rise they go up using the
clouds
as steps, and after they attained a height of forty li then they rush
forward effortlessly gliding." The jujube tree device sounds like the
Osprey. Scholars believe that the term "dragon" referred to the Lift
Demon
and that the Chinese had harnessed their power before the Western
world had
even discovered the Lift Demons' existence.

Lift Demons operate differently on different aircraft types. They get
dizzy
holding onto a spinning prop and become disorientated, thus more of
them
face the wrong direction which increases the drag. Lift Demons have
to be
magically bound to jet engines and an Airbus propulsion engineer
explained
"It takes an average of three day's solid chanting and ritual to get
one of
those 'engine' things to work. If us witches stopped our hard work,
there'd
be planes dropping out of the sky all over the place. We should never
have
let you lot find out about being able to fly, it's been nothing but
trouble
ever since."

Recognition of Lift Demons has also solved one of aviation's oldest
puzzles:
Gremlins. There appears to be a connection between Gremlins and Lift
Demons.
Gremlins may be Lift Demons that have, in some way, turned against
the
pilot. Instead of assisting him in his task of keeping the machine in
the
air, they do the opposite. The reason may be that, after reading
about the
Bernoulli/Newton dichotomy, they have become confused. Much has been
written
about Gremlins, dating back to WWII. Gremlins have been known to run
towards
the nose of an aircraft, causing it to dive into the sea, showing
that they
have at least some knowledge of the principles of flight. These days,
most
planes carry a full complement of In-Flight Gremlins; although they
must be
carefully managed, their presence generally inhibits the
transformation of
rogue Lift Demons into Gremlins.

Further study of Lift Demons was carried out by an aero-industry
weights
engineer who submitted the following scientific paper in 2004 to
celebrate
the anniversary of Shafer's ground-breaking article:

"There are still people in this company who think we weigh aircraft
to find
out how much they weigh, not to calculate stresses. Of course we need
to
know how much the thing weighs. How are we ever going to know how
many
Thrust Pixies we need to get the thing off the ground if we don't
know the
weight? Or should that be "Lift Demons"? Pixies have largely fallen
into
disrepute - something about Bernoulli not being representative in
unbounded
conditions and cause and effect being transposed in the Newtonian
model.

In fact the use of Lift Demons on civil aircraft programmes is
generally not
that good an idea. The Demon binding contract tends to specify
payment in
blood or souls. This is readily achievable with aircraft of military
function, but frowned upon in civilian circles as they may attempt to
acquire payment outside of the terms of their binding contract. Lift
Demons
are not used on Elf bombers. We don't talk about Lift [Thrust] Pixies
too
often as it seems to upset the self-loading cargo [passengers].
Pixies
require payment in cakes, flowers or nice thoughts. These are readily
sourced either from the in-flight catering, or provided cost-free by
the
passengers. Clearly this would not work well within an operational
military
environment. Air force cooking is not renowned for the "light and
fluffy
texture" that Thrust Pixies demand, the availability of flowers might
be
problematic in desert operations, and nice thoughts may also be hard
to find
during times of active operations.

There is also a scalability issue. While one rampant Lift Demon would
have
few problems supporting a fighter aircraft (particularly if there is
an
immediate prospect of blood), it'll struggle to achieve level
controlled
flight of a 560 tonne Airbus A380. Use of more than one Lift Demon on
the
same flight vehicle is contra-indicated (they squabble and eat each
other).
Communities of Thrust Pixies can be encouraged to work together on
the same
aircraft by the provision of advanced technologies such as Lemon
fondant
icing, variegated tulips or in-flight romantic comedies. Ryanair once
requested Leprachauns be installed in place of Lift [Thrust] Pixies,
but
Leprechauns have a mission statement which indicates their desire for
monetary gain, and their willingness to search all over the world for
it.
This makes Lift Leprechauns expensive to keep (gold vs. lemon fondant
icing), and makes it difficult to establish a regular route network
as the
Lift Leprechauns don't like to continuously visit the same locations.
By
law, aircraft also have to have a full complement of In-Flight
Gremlins, but
these are generally not a problem unless you feed the Wingtip Vortex
Faeries
after midnight."

His article shows that we've moved on a great deal since 1994. It has
been
known for some time that Lift Demons are best suited to military
uses. In
spite of suggestions that Pixies have fallen into disrepute, outside
of
military aviation it is Lift Demons that are considered pass=E9 - they
have
notoriously short attention spans and the ones used on Harriers have
problems discriminating between air and water. Inbreeding in pursuit
of the
ultimate high performance Lift Demon may have been the cause. In
civil
aviation, the way ahead still lies with Thrust Pixies, large amounts
of
lemon fondant icing and in-flight Hugh Grant movies. Many instances
of civil
planes mysteriously falling out of the sky can be traced to (a)
cessation of
happy thoughts/lack of lemon fondant for the pixies (resulting in
"Pixie
Fatigue" or even "catastrophic pixie failure") or to (b) a large
amount of
happy thoughts/gateau mountain at ground level distracting the pixies
from
their task. Thrust Pixies dislike Marmite/Vegemite (yeast extract)
and
since such spreads can cause unhappy thoughts in some passengers,
airline
caterers are careful to avoid these.

A note on Catastrophic Pixie Failu Temporary pixie problems
resulting in
turbulence or sudden loss of altitude causes unhappy thoughts in the
passengers (which is why cabin staff and pilots always play down such
occurrences). The resulting loss of happy thoughts causes further
Pixie
failure, worsening the situation. This makes passengers have even
more
unhappy thoughts and the Pixies become more fatigued; some may even
leave
the aircraft. Unless counter-acted by large lemon fondant reserves,
Pixie
Failure reaches catastrophic proportions and the aircraft is doomed.

Modern aircraft designers use Lift Fairies and avoid the whole
controversy
regarding the used of Lift Demons on civil aircraft programmes.
Coming from
a less benevolent cast, Lift Fairies are less dependent on nice
thoughts or
cakes. Fairies tend to less concerned with good and evil and hence
make
better dual use aircraft. Another major headache today is how to get
707
Lift Fairies at a reasonable price. Many of the older
aircraft-specific
fairies have become rare, if not unavailable. Aircraft numbering
relates to
the type and quantity of Lift Demons or Lift Fairies needed. For
example a
C-130 requires 130 "C class" Lift Demons while an Airbus A380 uses
380 "A"
class Thrust Pixies. Aero engineers have a scale of values
(proprietary
information, not available in the public domain) allowing them to
substitute
different numbers of Pixies and Demons with different lifting
abilities,
thus making best use of the available surfaces.

There was short-lived interest in breeding a generic, or at least
dual-use,
"Thrust Demon" but the blood-loving Lift Demons ate the gateau-loving
Thrust
Pixies. In vitro techniques failed because their genietic [sic]
material is
incompatible so there are no hybrid Thrust Demons. DNA sequencing has
allowed us to distinguish between many castes of Lift Demon, Thrust
Fairy
etc. For example due credit should be given to the inelegantly named
Fart
Fairies without whose bean eating and gas production, no machine
could power
itself from the earth's surface. The shy Turbine Winder-Rounder
Gnomes hide
inside those so-called engine nacelles from the public and indulge
their
serious kerosene drinking problems. Why else would the engines be
called
Gnome engines? Leading-Edge Leeries give the extra little push that
keeps
the nose up. The unfortunate tendency for RAF Harriers to crash into
the sea
has led to speculation that Harriers are equipped with Sirens or that
the
crashes resulted from an ill-advised experiment in using Water Nymphs
(these
are better suited to submarine propulsion). In any case, only export
versions of the Harrier are likely to use Sirens, while those for the
British domestic market use Banshees leased from the Irish.

Thrust Pixies are adequate for civil aircraft, while Lift Demons were
good
in military applications in years past, but modern Naval Aviation is
currently all Angel-powered. The very best ones are, of course, Blue
Angels.
This is why they report their altitude as "angels twenty" or such. In
addition, many Navy pilots claim that black air has no lift, which
means
they can get all night in to supplement their daytime naps between
meals.
This shows that Angels and Naval Lift Demons are strictly diurnal.
Genetically engineered, military-tolerant Thrust Pixies may be what
is
needed. Thrust Demons might also have applications in getting Air
Force
maritime patrol aircraft to stop reaching "prudent limit of
endurance" by 2
p.m. (local time) every Friday just after reporting a "possible
intruder"
submarine in the exercise area, and not be restored to flying status
until 9
a.m. Monday, thus leaving the ships to stay out over the weekend
looking for
the "intruder".

There are no Anti-Gravity Demons so a different approach has to be
taken in
this field of research. Current research into inertia-free propulsion
has
shown great promise through the use of properly modified felines.
Butter is
spread evenly over the felines back. When the creature is tossed
lightly
into the air, the third law of universal fate dictates that it must
land
butter side down. However this does not occur due to the intervention
of the
feline landing axiom (feet first). The above conflicting forces
result in a
stable hover. The subject felines have demonstrated the ability to
control
their own velocity at will. The only loose ends delaying the full
commercialisation of this process is the matter of persuading the
felines to
(a) work in teams; (b) not lick off the butter and (c) follow a
flight plan.
As there seems to be a deficiency in feline herding instincts, any
suggestions would be appreciated by the researchers involved.


Then the explanation I got in 1959 that it involves mass hypnotism
isn't true?