Re: Airfoil lift, new article

["Michael N. Monce" <mnmon@CONNCOLL.EDU>]

On Thu, 14 Jan 1999, William Beaty wrote:

> I don't know if PHYS-L people really would want to get involved with that
> discussion, because we can talk forever and not convince anyone.  To
> convince them, they must confront the fact that they've been visualizing
> the physics of flight incorrectly, as well as angrily defending an
> incorrect premise.  And these people are pilots!  It's far easier to
> convince a non-expert that their pre-existing concepts are actually
> misconceptions!  :)

        I had such a discussion about 6 months ago in the flight simulator
group I belong to (I quit actual flying many years ago due to the high
costs).  The heated discussion was with a CFI pilot who now has been hired
by an airline.  Nothing I could do would ever convince him that the
Bernoulli equation can be derived from Newton's laws.  Even when
confronted with the idea of a symmetrical airfoil and inverted flight he
stuck with his notion of pressure differences as the only route to explain
lift.
        And I used to think I could generalyy teach anybody some physics
:)

                                Mike Monce
                                Connecticut College