Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/03/06

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Subject: Re: upside-down airplanes (was: [Leica] Optical Question)
From: John Collier <jbcollier@powersurfr.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 12:53:57 -0700

Big jet airliners do not fly by creating a vacuum above their wings. Wings
are giant air pumps forcing enormous quantities of air downward. There was
an interesting article in Discover magazine on this very issue.

John Collier

> From: "Douglas Herr" <telyt@earthlink.net>
>
> Ernest Nitka wrote:
> 
>> why is that airplanes can fly upside down - if
>> flying upright caused a vacuum just above the wing
>> creating lift then flying upside down should cause
>> the wing to move down. This has bothered me for
>> near on 2 decades.  I get bothered easily
>> 
>> ernie
>> 
> 
> The airplane's wing is designed to produce lift efficiently at it's normal
> angle of attack but it can produce additional lift inefficiently by increasing
> the angle of attack (until it stalls).  The upside-down airfoil relies on a
> high angle of attack to produce lift but does so very inefficiently.
> 

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Replies: Reply from Javier Perez <summarex@yahoo.com> (Re: upside-down airplanes (was: [Leica] Optical Question))