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Theories of lift



 
 
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  #1  
Old April 1st 06, 06:30 AM posted to sci.military.naval,rec.aviation.military,rec.aviation.misc
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Default Theories of lift


Title of Paper: The Role of Lift Demons and Thrust Pixies in Heavier Than
Air Flight

Publication Date: April 1st

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. [...] 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 passé
- 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.

Special Rotorcraft supplement: "The Ground Repels Them - or Optical
Illusions with Sound Effects", Sikorsky, Piasecki, Kamen, Hiller, Bell,
Ceirva, Focke and Breguet, 1940, the FM Press.


  #2  
Old April 2nd 06, 10:24 AM posted to sci.military.naval,rec.aviation.military,rec.aviation.misc
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Default Theories of lift


"Avril Poisson" wrote in message
. 143.38...

Title of Paper: The Role of Lift Demons and Thrust Pixies in Heavier Than
Air Flight


snip

Thanks, I was hoping someone would post this............

Vee-One


  #3  
Old April 28th 06, 02:30 AM posted to sci.military.naval,rec.aviation.military,rec.aviation.misc
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Posts: n/a
Default Theories of lift

Avril Poisson wrote:

Title of Paper: The Role of Lift Demons and Thrust Pixies in Heavier Than
Air Flight

Publication Date: April 1st

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

snip


Now you've done it.

This report was recently reclassified by the US Department of Spurious
and Petty Ever Classified Information Originally Unclassified Secretly
(SPECIOUS).

John Mullen
  #4  
Old April 28th 06, 07:20 AM posted to sci.military.naval,rec.aviation.military,rec.aviation.misc
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Theories of lift

In article , John P. Mullen
writes
Avril Poisson wrote:

Title of Paper: The Role of Lift Demons and Thrust Pixies in Heavier Than
Air Flight

Publication Date: April 1st

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

snip


Now you've done it.

This report was recently reclassified by the US Department of Spurious
and Petty Ever Classified Information Originally Unclassified Secretly
(SPECIOUS).

John Mullen


Were these lift demons by any chance named Bernie and Willie?

Cheers,

Dave

--
Dave Eadsforth
 




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