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Re: Misconceptions: Physics of Flight



"unencumbered as i am by any factual information whatsoever, i would
speculate that..."

now, wait a minute. as i picture the system, there's this unsuspecting mass
of air, made up of discrete particles. a wing moves through it. the wing
forces air particles out of its way. those that are pushed up are
deflected at a steeper angle than those that are pushed down, because of
the shape of the leading edge. as the wing passes, the air particles come
together again behind it. the particles that were deflected upwards had
farther to go, and moved faster, not because of the difference in length of
the top surface of the wing vs. the bottom surface, but because they went
UP farther than the others went down. the mental picture i have is that
the individual molecules move up and down, or down and up again, not
horizontally.

i must be wrong somewhere. i always thought this was a simple thing. y'all
make it sound so complicated! ;-)

but i'm still wrestling with how a plane can fly upside down, except that
air is matter, has mass and takes up space... does it have to be going
faster to maintain altitude if it's upside down, to cause enough lift to
overcome gravity?


Dr. Lois Breur Krause
Department of Geological Sciences
442 Brackett Hall
Clemson University
Clemson SC 29634

teaching chemistry, physics, astronomy and geology to elementary education
majors.

How We Learn and Why We Don't: Student Survival Guide,
available from International Thompson Publishing, ISBN 0324-011970

http://home.earthlink.net/~breurkrause

krause@clemson.edu