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Old 09-27-2003 | 05:38 PM
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Maelstrom
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From: Gadsden, AL
Default RE: wingtip vorticies

A couple of things do not make sense to me (an this coming from someone who is NOT an engineer or even a full scale pilot; I am a Pulmonary Disease specialist how knows JUST a little about airflow, loves aviation, and like most of us here, crashes his airplanes more than we should):

Can lift not be created with a simmetrical airfoil with a positive angle of attack (AOA)?
If you think of it, a simmetrical airfoil does not generate lift if perfectly horizontal, does it? Then, if the only thing that we change is the AOA and we generate lift, could it not be that the kinetic energy of the air molecules hitting the bottom of the wing generate a vector of vertical force (ie lift)?

Does lift not increase as the AOA increases until a point where turbulence occurs and the wing stalls? Doesn't this "critical AOA ( the AOA where you stall the wing)" become smaller with a wing that has rectangular cross section? If so, could it not be that the flat leading edge and trailing edge generate turbulence which alters airflow over and under the wing, therefor decreasing the effective kinetic energy of the air hitting the bottom of the wing?

Forget the idea that the air molecules "have to meet" at the trailing edge. If you take that for a fact and you base all your concepts on a wrong principle, many of your conclusions may be wrong. You say you have participated in many experiments and tha NASA, FAA, etc, have made numerous experiments showing that the air molecules do meet at the trailing edge. With all due respect, do you have any reference we can look at? I happen to be one of those persons who prefers to read the source directly and make my own conclusions, rather than take tour experience or anyone else's for granted. If I didn't look at my patients' XRays myself, I could not practice Medicine. I am serious. Radiologists are wrong so often, it is scary. And I am not saying I am not wrong, don't be mistaken, but I try to minimize the risk of being wrong by looking at the data carefully. (Sorry, rambling here).

Respectfully,

Luis