Mitek,

I'm not sure if I know enough to answer all of your question but I'll answer as best I can. Your right on the complete seperation at 20 AOA. If you take the AOA and mutiply it by .11 this will give you an ideal line any were that a Cl curve very from this it shows that something is going on to reduce lift...(spanwise flow, a bubble, boundry layer seperation).

Harrier manouvers are done with planes with Low AR.....the spanwise flow that is coming over the wing tips kind of energize the boundary layer creating turbulant flow and keeps the boundry layer from seperating (trapping the boundry layer).....this is a power "induced Angle of Attack" and harrier manouvers are only possible with a substantail amount of power and is not very effecient flight....the nasa sim does not show the induced AOA....and I don't know enough about it to quantify what the effect does. About all I can tell you is AR under 3 and closer to 2 or 1 can produce induced AOA. Remeber that your AR correct equation kind of tells you the amount of the wing that is being effected by the spanwise flow.

As far as the cyllinder or ball....lets say that they are spinning so that the top of the object is moving the same direction as the flow...this will create a low pressure area because the flow is being accelerated just like a foil. On the buttom the object would be spinning opposite the air flow so it would slow it down creating a high pressure area at the bottom of the object....very simular to what happens with a wing at some AOA. If a ball or cylinder is not spinning then the pressure is equal above and below so no lift is generated.... this would be like a symetric foil at zero AOA.

With the ellipse, lift is not the only thing that is important when considering what is the best airfoil....you must also consider drag....the two together (drag/lift) will give you the effecieny of a wing. I don't really know what the drag on an elliptical type foil looks like. Further the other issue that is important is were the center of pressure is on a foil and how it moves. In order to build a controllable plane this most be accounted for and the ellipse may be difficult to control...i'm not sure about that....would a parasail be an example of an elliptical wing? Maybe someone else would have a better explination?

Steve