Real world Kraken Drives

[K^2]

You get all sorts of explanations claiming that the airflow splits and has to neatly rejoin at the same point behind the wing and more nonsense like that.

Oh, yeah. Equal Transit-Time Fallacy. Not only has it been demonstrated wrong, but it is trivial to show that Equal Transit implies zero circulation, which, by Kutta-Joukowski Theorem implies zero lift. Not only is it wrong, but where it true, winged flight would be impossible. The fact that there are still people out there who believe that nonsense is rather sad.

[z26]

Personally this page from nasa http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/lift1.html finally demystified to me in a clear way how that "lift" thing work.

Also, ksp made me understand the implications of f=ma. (which helps explains alot)

[cantab]

Well, since the topic's come up, is this a reasonably accurate simple explanation?

* Wings moving through the air deflect it downwards. As per Newton's Third Law, that means there's an upwards reaction force on the wings - lift.

* The shape of the wing means the air flowing over the top sticks to it and gets deflected downwards, not just the air flowing under the bottom. That gives more lift than with a flat board.

[DaveofDefeat]

Well, since the topic's come up, is this a reasonably accurate simple explanation?

* Wings moving through the air deflect it downwards. As per Newton's Third Law, that means there's an upwards reaction force on the wings - lift.

* The shape of the wing means the air flowing over the top sticks to it and gets deflected downwards, not just the air flowing under the bottom. That gives more lift than with a flat board.

No, its not, there's some pressure involved too.

Edited April 8, 2014 by DaveofDefeat