Airplane Pilot's As Physicists

"Le Chaud Lapin" wrote in message
ps.com...

I am an electrical engineer with experience in analag

That would be "analog" there, wouldn't it, engineer? Now, think about how
"attention to detail" applies to math.

I count 8-9 people in the group who are utterly convinced that I am inept
at physics, mathematics, etc.

Nobody's saying you're inept at anything; just arrogant about your
assumptions, and wrong, and quite possibly dishonest about your identity.

Taking on the science of NASA, for example, challenges the kind of people
who put men on the moon, shuttle aircraft into space and back, and robots on
Mars. What I'm saying is, they've proven their ability to do math and
physics. You're talking about two pieces of paper on a table or whatever,
admitting you don't fully understand aerodynamics, and then challenging the
kind of people who did research using SR-71 blackbirds and spacecraft.

....in a pilots' forum. What in hell kind of response did you possibly
expect?

-c

Le Chaud Lapin writes:

If you read carefully, the premise of what they are saying is that, if
you have, for example, a sealed jar with air in it, you are permitted
to consider the air on the _inside_ of the jar, pushing up on the lid
as contributing to a force to lift the jar off the ground, but you are
not allowed to consider the air on the _inside_ of the jar, pushing
down on the jar un the upper surface of the bottom of the jar.

The atmosphere is not a sealed jar. The source of air pressure in the
atmosphere is gravity, not confinement and kinetic energy.

Sam Wormley writes:

The same way that your hand gets pulled upwards if you stick it out the
car window and tilt it. The lift of an airfoil is determined by two
things - the shape of the wing, and it's angle of attack.

Actually, only the angle of attack matters.

So when the lift from angle of attack in the up direction, exceeds the lift from
the shape of the wing ...

All of the lift comes from the positive angle of attack.

Answered by: Frank DiBonaventuro, B.S., Physics, The Citadel, Air Force
officer

I guess even the Citadel is passing on some bad information.

Le Chaud Lapin writes:

Even though this (new) thread is not about what causes a wing to lift,
I just wanted to say for the record that I agree with this answer,
that it is both AoA and curvature of the wing.

It's just AOA.

"Randy Poe" wrote in message
oups.com...

As I said, I lean toward the angle-of-attack arguments now. Take
a flat rectangle, tilt it into the wind. The wind blows against the
front which is also the bottom, not the back/top. So the
forces are on the bottom.

The day the physics guys were passing out good wing designs, the aerospace
designers were all out drinking beer, which is why every airplane since the
Wright flyer has camber when they could have just used flat plywood.

-c

"Le Chaud Lapin" wrote in message
ups.com...

If you read carefully, the premise of what they are saying is that, if
you have, for example, a sealed jar with air in it, you are permitted
to consider the air on the _inside_ of the jar,

WTF is he talking about? Nobody said anything about air -inside- of a wing.

-c

I don't understand the subject of the post. "Airplane Pilot's" what?
Why are you using a possessive noun here?

-Robert

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Sam Wormley writes:

The same way that your hand gets pulled upwards if you stick it out
the car window and tilt it. The lift of an airfoil is determined by
two things - the shape of the wing, and it's angle of attack.

Actually, only the angle of attack matters.


Nope, wrong again fjukkwit.



So when the lift from angle of attack in the up direction, exceeds
the lift from the shape of the wing ...

All of the lift comes from the positive angle of attack.


Nope, worng again.



Answered by: Frank DiBonaventuro, B.S., Physics, The Citadel, Air
Force officer

I guess even the Citadel is passing on some bad information.


Nope.


They fly, you don;t.

You never will,.
Nor wil your sockpuppets.

Bertie

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Le Chaud Lapin writes:

Even though this (new) thread is not about what causes a wing to lift,
I just wanted to say for the record that I agree with this answer,
that it is both AoA and curvature of the wing.

It's just AOA.


Nope.

bertie

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Randy Poe writes:

As I said, I lean toward the angle-of-attack arguments now. Take
a flat rectangle, tilt it into the wind. The wind blows against the
front which is also the bottom, not the back/top. So the
forces are on the bottom.

The essential feature of an airfoil is that it twists the flow of air
as it passes (or as the airfoil passes through still air, which is
equivalent, and that's how it works in airplanes). The air is
accelerated downward, and this engenders an equal and opposite force
that is lift.

So how does a wing produce lift? By twisting air downwards, creating
a downwash. Accelerating a mass of air downwards tends to accelerate
the wing upwards, and there's your lift.

The theory gets more complicated when you try to explain exactly how
and why airfoils twist an airflow. Just looking at a flat board with
a positive angle of attack, you'd think that it would twist the air,
and that's exactly what it does. But the devil is in the details.

Fortunately, aviators don't have to know or care about the details.
All they need to know is that a wing with a positive angle of attack
(and below the stall angle) will generate lift.

Lift, like so many other phenomena in physics, can be analyzed and
explained in a number of different, equally valid ways, depending on
one's point of view. All analyses and explanations converge on the
same reality. Of course, some explanations of lift are just plain
incorrect, and unfortunately a few of them are quite widespread.





Nope


Bertie