From: "JACK L. URETSKY (C)1998; HEP DIVISION, ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB ARGONNE, IL 60439" <JLU@HEP.ANL.GOV>
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 16:16:47 -0500
Michael Edmiston writes (in part):
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Although I personally do not like Bernoulli analysis as a means to
explain lift, I believe it is an analysis that is reasonably valid.
However, to use it you have to know the velocities. These velocities
are best measured in a wind tunnel. But once you have a particular
airfoil in a wind tunnel at some angle of attack and some overall air
velocity, why measure velocity differences and calculate lift when you
can directly measure lift (and drag) from your airfoil support
mechanism?
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Because for some purposes it is impartant to know the pressure
distribution on the wing. One puts, for this purpose, a distribution
of pressure measuring devices near the wing surface (or, at least, one
used to - I'm not up to date on current practices).
I am just remembering that Grumman built the F8F with breakable
wing tips, so that when the g-limitation on the aircraft was exceeded then
a wing tip would snap off (rather than the entire wing). I think we lost
a couple because only one tip went, and the pilot could not control the
asymmetrical loading. Worked fine, though, when the test pilot did it!
Regards,
Jack
"I scored the next great triumph for science myself,
to wit, how the milk gets into the cow. Both of us
had marveled over that mystery a long time. We had
followed the cows around for years - that is, in the
daytime - but had never caught them drinking fluid of
that color."
Mark Twain, Extract from Eve's
Autobiography