On Feb 10, 2005, at 3:29 PM, dhbailey wrote:
Andrew Stiller wrote:If Bernoulli's law were responsible for lift in aircraft, airplanes wouldn't be able to fly upside-down--and they can.
I'm confused by this remark -- Bernoulli's law deals with the flow of air over an air-foil and the difference in presssure on the under side of the wing and the top of the wing. When a plane flies upside down there is still an upper side and a lower side for the air to work against. Well designed wings (as in aerobatic planes) work equally well no matter which side is up.
What I was always taught was that for the Bernoulli principle to work, there had to be camber--air had to travel further over the curved top of the wing than under the flat bottom of it. The greater distance would reduce the pressure of the air atop the wing, resulting in lift. Obviously, a wing operating on any such principle could not function upside down.
I t wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that I have this wrong--my strength among the sciences lies in biology/geology/astronomy. However (and in that same regard) the bit about airplanes flying upside down came to me via a scholarly paper on the flight mechanics of giant Cretaceous pterosaurs, delivered at a paleontology symposium I attended a few years back.
Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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