"Toad-Man" wrote in message
...
"Beav" wrote in
:


"Steve R." wrote in message
...
Hi Kevin,

Glad to know it's not just "me!" ;-)

Actually, from what I've read through the years, even the guys out
there with full blown PhD's in rotorcraft aerodynamics don't fully
understand
this
stuff so us little peons shouldn't be too embarrassed by the
confusion we feel when trying to get a handle on it.

So HOW do these things get off the ground? Are they sucked off
(PuLEASE!! or are they blown off?



Flight (and many other things in our Universe) make use of measurable
and repeatable forces and effects. However, because we can measure a
force, it doesn't necessarily mean we know why the force is present or
the effect occurs.

For example, you can measure how long you're on the Internet with a
watch, but I doubt you know exactly how the internet is operating while
you're online. Jsut because you don't know, doesn't mean you can't get a
computer and get online though.

Back to flight - gravity is of course a major force, but the collected
scientific knowledge of our species still cannot say exactly what
gravity *is* - we know there is a force, we can measure it and predict
its effects and make use of it, but we still don't know what it is that
causes the force we know as gravity.

Same is true for many physical properties of the universe, that's what
people like Stephen Hawking are trying to find out - they're looking for
a unified theory that will explain what we can measure physically
(gravity, lift, drag etc) and what we have observed about atomic
structure and behaviour (unfortunately Newtonian physics that we use to
achieve flight, don't work at the atomic level). That work continues...

So the ability for aircraft to fly simply proves that we can measure and
make use of forces - not that we understand why those forces exist or
even how they work under all circumstances. For all we know, aircraft
may well be sucked and blown off to achieve flight, personally I'd
rather know the best way for a pilot to achieve those things

Well that's easy, just lie down (and think of England:-)



--
Beav


Please note my E-mail address is "beavis dot original at ntlworld dot com"
(with the obvious changes)

Beavisland now lives at
www.beavisoriginal.co.uk