On Feb 12, 6:51*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
On Feb 12, 5:38 pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
You are correct in that there are incorrect theories of lift in play,
but totally incorrect in any assumption that these incorrect theories
are not so well known as to be considered at this point in time 101 by
any good flight instructor.and indeed, any well trained pilot.
For you to appear here and state that pilots generally are unaware of
these issues is disingenuous *to a fault and totally untrue.

Hmm...the NASA site and a few other sites I found a few months ago
seemed to imply that incorrect theories of flight were still popular,
even among pilots. But of course, I cannot know.

There are basically 3 incorrect theories of lift and they are the equal
transit theory, the "venturi" theory, and the reaction theory concerning
the underside of the wing.
Both Bernoulli and Newton are in themselves complete explanations of
lift as both occur at the same instant in time on the surface generating
lift and one can not physically be present without the other.
Each can be used to explain lift, and good CFI's present lift explaining
how both interact.

This information as I said is basic to all good pilots and CFI's.

Well, this response could have saved us a lot of typing in my OP on
backwash long ago.

Also...my Jeppesen "Private Pilot" "Guided Flight Discovery" book was
published in 2007, and what is written in it contradicts what is
written on the NASA site. *And what is written at two promiment aero/
astro texts in the USA contradicts what is written on the NASA site.
And what my own flight instructor told me in ground school contradicts
what my physics book says.

I did consider the possibility that pilots who teach/write these books
know that some of what is being taught/written is not accurate, but,
in the interest of matriculating and moving the student quickly
through flight learning, they simply repeat what was said in early
days of flight.

Being an engineer, I would rather have had a disclaimer, something
like, "There is still much debate on this issue....but this is what we
know or think we know.."

-Le Chaud Lapin-

As I said, and said correctly, there are basically 3 incorrect theories
of lift out here and these are well known and corrected daily by any
good CFI or pilot.
Addressing your issue specifically, there are ALSO a considerable amount
of both CFI's and pilots who teach correct theory incorrectly, which can
cause even more confusion.
Contrary to what you have implied by your assertions here, I have found
the pilots and instructors on these forums to generally be quite aware
of the incorrect lift issues and more than willing (Google is your
friend on this) to engage those like yourself who have questions.
There are always a few "hold overs" from the old incorrect days on any
public forum, but to state that this condition is anything close to
systemic is a huge stretch.

There is nothing wrong with presenting a question that contradicts some
of what has been written about lift, but doing so as a challenge to
pilots everywhere will ruffle a few feathers every time.
There are many fine pilots out here who don't have engineering degrees.
I can assure you these people are anything but stupid.
If you are a student and as well a knowledgeable engineer, that can show
in your questions without being challenging or demeaning.
To reiterate, there are text books still in print that offer incorrect
information on this issue, but the main cause of confusion lies in
another direction. The books are being corrected every day, and not all
of them are wrong by a long shot.
The real "issue" on the subject of lift lies in the basic misconceptions
of a few, not in the ignorance of the general flying community as you
have incorrectly insinuated.

This is plain wrong.

In fact, my estimation of what pilots knew was far greater both before
ground school and before I made my post and before I read the Barry
Schiff's book.

I know that there are some pilots who understand system dynamics very
well. I saw a presentation on TV about blue angles, and for maybe 200
milliseconds, on the blackboard, I saw a transfer function, H(s),
something that you cannot appreciate without understanding complex
analysis. So I was impressed indeed.

That was *before* my experience with average pilots. The best
experience I had in talking to a real pilot was the person who runs
the local control tower. We had engaging conversation about feasibilty
of Moller's car. I also had a few conversations with the owner of my
pilot school, and of course, my instructor.

Those are real world pilot's I have met.

If you would read the responses to my OP about backward, you'd see
that not only was there was a lot of "you're wrong, the book is right"
responses. This was not a few of the responders, it was more than
50%. You call that a few?

In any case, what this is about is not whether I am right about lift
or not, because I conceded in my OP that I have no idea, as I only
recently started thinking about. This is more about the attitude that
immediately resulted from broaching a legitimate technical question.

I want to reemphasize that I was not "challenging" any pilots. I was
mainly concerned with the physics. If anyones feathers got ruffled,
it was probably because they decided that they did not like what was
being written.

If someone were to come to "my" groups, in EE or software, and
challenge, say, where charge lies on a capacitor or whether AVL trees
are better than binary trees, my feathers certainly would not be
ruffled.

After all, it's just talk.

[Actually, you've almost affirmed what I suspected initially, that
some pilot's felt that questioning the theory was a direct challenge
to their knowledge. I certainly hope this wasn't the motivation for
the responses I receieved.]

-Le Chaud Lapin-