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Old March 3rd 06, 11:21 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting,rec.aviation.homebuilt,rec.aviation.student
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Default lift, wings, and Bernuolli

The hovering spacecraft has zero horizontal and vertical momentum.
It has weight, directed downwards. The engine accelerates
mass downward producing an upward force equal in magnitude
and opposite in direction to the weight of the spacecraft. This
imparts an acceleration to the spacecraft equal in magnitude and
opposite in direction from the local acceleration due to gravity.


The flying wing has some horizontal momentum which is secondary here,
and zero vertical momentum.
It also has weight, directed downwards. The wing accelerates
mass downward (mass it finds in the air molecules) producing
an upward force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to
the weight of the wing (and its presumably attached aircraft. It does
so by finding air in front of it, flinging it downwards and forwards
(which causes the air in front to try to get out of the way by rising).
In the steady state, one can measure high pressure below and low
pressure above, but this is just the macroscopic manifestation of the
greater number of molecular collisions below, and the lesser number of
collisions above. That's what pressure is - we have both agreed on this.

The greater number of collisions below
imparts an acceleration to the aircraft equal in magnitude and
opposite in direction from the local acceleration due to gravity.

Unlike the spacecraft (at least to first order), the wing is actually
supported by the earth, as the pressure below the wing is higher than it
would have been absent the wing's passage, and this higher pressure
(spread out over many square miles) pushes down on the earth with a
force equal to the weight of the aircraft.

Jose
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