flightoffancy wrote:
I thought I had read in numerous books during training that the primary
component of lift is the air that gets knocked downward by the wing. I
was calling that "downwash". Maybe my concept of downwash is wrong,
maybe it's a separate consideration from the air that gets knocked
downward by the airfoil. Hell I might not be remembering any of that
correctly.

You appear to have the essential concept right. But aerodynamicists call it
"turning" the flow, which is different from what they call "downwash."
Here's NASA's explanations:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/lift1.html

And if you click on "turning" you can see this explanation of the term (and
hopefully why "turning" was chosen):

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/right2.html

And this is what aerodynamicists call "downwash" :

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/downwash.html

You should understand that "Bertie" likes to play games with people's
heads. Besides, he has made mistakes with basic physics (e.g. he asserted
with absolute authority and certainty that the only time a person in a
plane would feel 1 gee of force is in straight and level flight.) So if you
are serious you probably shouldn't engage him or take anything he says
seriously. If you want some fun, then by all means have at it.