this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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boy do I agree.
I fly a lot, and I think about this a lot. it's absolutely nuts.
I saw a diagram once explaining how planes fly, this is a good explanation of that:
"Airplane wings are shaped to make air move faster over the top of the wing. When air moves faster, the pressure of the air decreases. So the pressure on the top of the wing is less than the pressure on the bottom of the wing. The difference in pressure creates a force on the wing that lifts the wing up into the air."
so that's floating around the back of my mind while I sit in my air chair and think:
"and there we are.
We are climbing into the air again in the big flexible metal tube.
The wings have flex and they almost look like they are flapping in the wind right there.
well, this is crazy again"
approximates my thought process each time I fly.
Wait until you find out that probably wrong.
Its what we assumed for the last 100 odd years, but apparently in the last few we discovered they don't actually work like that.
oh, go on.
i haven't heard of the updated dynamics of flight.
I don't know why everybody focuses so much on the top of the wing. Relative to ambient air, the pressure above the wing is slightly reduced, but the pressure below the wing is massively increased. That massive increase is far more important than the slight reduction above.
We know this, because simple, flat airfoils are capable of flight. Think: paper airplanes, simple balsa models, etc.
The shape of the airfoil is not actually very important for lift. You can make a brick produce plenty enough lift to maintain its altitude, if you can provide sufficient thrust and control it's attitude.
The specific shape of the airfoil is primarily important for minimizing drag across a variety of speeds and angles of attack at various loadings. This is where the top surface of the wing becomes important. By maintaining the flow over the wing, drag is reduced, and controllability is maintained.
yeah, I'm with you, the Newtonian makes more practical end complete sense to me sense to me as an explanation for a lift.
maybe the confusion comes from calling the motion of pushing air down "lift"
push-off.
hm. what the heck is an appropriate antonym for lift...
spring-hold.
oh, buoyancy?
maybe we should switch our talk from lift to buoyancy.
rather than generating lift, velocity through the air generates aerodynamic buoyancy due to the increase in downward pressure, or rather the compressed air beneath the airfoil.