Lift (force) - Description of Lift On An Airfoil

Description of Lift On An Airfoil

There are several ways to explain how an airfoil generates lift. Some are more complicated or more mathematically rigorous than others; some have been shown to be incorrect. For example, there are explanations based directly on Newton’s laws of motion and explanations based on Bernoulli’s principle. Either can be used to explain lift. This article will start with the simplest explanation; more complicated and alternative explanations will follow.

Read more about this topic:  Lift (force)

Famous quotes containing the words description of, description and/or lift:

    “Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple record of the month’s labor in the farmer’s almanac, to restore our tone and spirits.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
    —Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    “[Humanity] has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug—push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”
    —Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)