ORIGINAL: dick Hanson
Ok sport
how about this:
lift occurs ANYTIME there is a pressure difference- between bottom surface and upper surface .
the shape means NADA
The lift is simply a result of mother nature trying to equalize pressure.
Or my third rule of aerodynamics which states : lift is drag and drag is lift .
You can't have one without the other .
anytime lift occurs , thre is an unbalance in air pressure - and drag. If you could get lift without drag - you would zip off to the moon.
Dick,
I'll assume that I get to be 'sport' today.
I can agree with much of that. Lift indeed occurs when there is a pressure difference between the top and bottom. I don't agree that "shape means NADA", because the shape is what we use to cause said pressure difference. Nature will indeed try to equalize pressure, but I personally wouldn't say that lift is the result of the equalization; it's the result of the inequality. To say that "lift is drag and drag is lift" is incorrect and unhelpful, as the two quantities are unambiguously defined and unambiguously different. I would say instead: "there can be no lift without drag".
banktoturn