I would like to know the difference between flat wing, symetrical
wing, semi symetrical wing, clipped wing and all other forms of
aircraft building and design. How does the wing create lift (etc)
Thanks
Neil

No prob,

1. Flat bottom wing: Flat on bottom, curved on top. Very stable and great for beginners to learn on.

2. Semi Symmetrical: curved on top, curved on bottom, but not as much. OK for some beginners and a little unforgiving.

3. Symmetrical: the curve on top is the same as the curve on the bottom of the wing. This wing will be totally unforgiving for a beginner pilot.

Clipped wing is a wing that is shorter than usual for the same aircraft. It increases the wing loading and can make the plane more aerobatic and less stable. I think this is something you will only see on J-3 Cubs.

I'm no rocket scientist so I'll let someone else try to type out why a wing generates lift. but it's not that difficult

Scott

Basically lift from a conventional wing is created in a mixture of two ways:-

1/ Air is deflected downwards, due to the angle of the wing (the angle is known as incidence), and as Newton said, every force has an equal and opposite force, so the wing creates lift.

2/ More importantly, as the top of the wing is curved, and the bottom isn't (usually) the air has to travel a greater distance over the top of the wing compared to the bottom. Since this happens at the same time, the air over the top has to travel faster.

Any fluid traveling faster does so at a lower pressure (put very simply, due to something called conservation of energy; the energy of the extra speed coming from the pressure energy thus reducing the pressure). As there is a greater pressure under the wing, compared with over the wing, lift is created.

Actually, it's a lot more complicated than that, but those are the basics.

Hope that helps!

David C.