one unresolved corner of physics
Hardly! People board airplanes every single day and we still don’t fundamentally understand the mechanisms of how lift works.
Lift works the same way a tennis racket does.
We know exactly why and how.
I heard that it was just the angle of the wings redirecting the air downwards as reaction mass, like how a rocket engine shoots air downwards.
It is both, but the pressure one contributes more to lift. You can see this when a wing stalls, the airflow separates from the upper surface and the pressure difference is gone. The angle of a stalled wing still means air is directed downwards, but the overall lift is much smaller.
At least that is what I’ve been told anyways
When I thought there was higher pressure under the wing that pushed the plane up, I was happy. When I started thinking, instead, about little vacuum vortices above the wings pulling them up instead, I was suddenly much less comfortable with the whole proposition. Given the options and the limited effect on my daily life, I’m gotta go with Newton over Bernoulli on this one.
I think it’s more so that we know HOW it works but we don’t know WHY it works
I think it’s more so that we know HOW it works
Speak for yourself. I’m a student pilot and most of my instructors (who are either retired airline pilots or are trying to build up flight hours to qualify for an airline job) don’t understand the science behind it. To be fair, understanding the science doesn’t really help you fly a plane…
I don’t get it, how can you know how it works but not how? Or is it some philosophical why are the laws the way they are?
