Aerodynamics - Brandy!

I’m sure most are tired about hearing about “lift” in the Q’s thread so I thought I would bring the discussion here.

After learning that Lift is being questioned by NASA and that it might not actually exist….;
I was just reading about terminal velocity and that air resistance must balance weight;

If an air craft wing is lighter on top and heavier on the bottom because of it’s shape and mass, would the air resistance cause the heavier molecules that would normally accelerate for longer and at a higher speed at the bottom of the wing want to torque around the higher part of the wing, that it’s attached to, causing it to defy gravity because of it’s struggle to remain perpendicular to the air it’s moving through and the upward forces?
Being that the air has something to do with it but not to do suction or negative pressure or ‘Lift’.

This would explain even a paper aeroplane’s ability to fly without lift!
Maybe it’s a stupid Christmas afternoon silly thought! Or I’m a Genius!!!!

Feathers on birds wings!

IT ALL MAKES SENSE (says the drunken uncle)

Haha! Yes, I was wondering how long the discussion in the questions thread would remain aeronautically related.

When you have any object (not just an aerofoil) that is heavier on one side than the other the heavy side will always tend to be on the down side during freefall. This is how traditionally loaded dice were set up, heavy side down! It also shows with objects such as darts and javelins. Jugglers take advantage as well using bowling pins that are super heavy on the side they want to catch. When said object is an aerofoil a wierd effect can be observed, provided it is weighted correctly. The aerofoil will want to point nose first (if the nose is the slightly heavier end) and will gain speed as it’s drag coefficient decreases as it becomes parallel to the airflow. As it picks up speed it will produce more lift, it’s angle of attack will increase is it tries to lift “up” with respect to it’s movement and the aerofoil will level out with respect to the earth’s surface. As it levels out and the lift is counter-acting against gravity the aerofoil will once again slow down, the nose will start to drop due to it’s extra weight and the cycle will repeat itself provided it is balanced correctly. It will not, without assistance such as wind or power, be able to gain a greater height than that which it started at.

If the weight is distributed elsewhere on the aerofoil (such as across the bottom) then yes, the heavy section will also try to balance itself below the centre of gravity. Again, another way to view this on objects that are not aerofoils is balancing something from a bar. If you hang a ball from said bar with a piece of string it will gradually fall still easily balancing below the system’s centre of gravity. If you try to balance the ball on the top of the bar it will most likely roll off to either side due to the effects of gravity. The same thing happens within the aerofoil and the heavy side tries to stay on the bottom, but if the weight is not distributed well then the flight path down can often be unpredictable.

Terminal Velocity occurs when you can no longer accelerate downwards due to air resistance and is dependant on an objects mass density as well as it’s design. This makes intuitive sense as well. If you take a brick and drop it from a height it will fall, funnily enough, like a brick. However, if you got hold of a really large umbrella which weighs the same as the brick and dropped it from the same height it would resist the acceleration of gravity at an earlier time because it has a far lower mass density. Terminal velocity, however, is dependant on an entire system, not just the heavier part of a system. So the terminal velocity for the aircraft includes the wings in the system. If the wings broke off, seeing that that carry far less weight and cover a pretty large area, they would then come down at a slower pace.

Bringing all of this together to answer your question.

The wing will still be falling but it will no longer be accerating once it reaches terminal velocity. If weighted correctly it will probably perform a series of small arcs (or J’s) on it’s way down as the lift is continually varying. The whole system is considered in terminal velocity, not just different parts of the wing. But, in the case of paper aeroplanes it is the perfect explanation in why they can fly without power, though they still use lift.

Unfortunately it is not the solution to perpetual motion! Although, it wasn’t a bad effort.

Have I answered your question/given an adequate explanation for you? There are a whole lot of other technicalities and special circumstances that need to be considered but I’ve tried to make it understandable to every other reader in the forum as well.

I thought t I had discovered the answers to the universe - being Xmas afternoon and fuelled by thought altering alcohol I was ‘flying’ of on tangent thoughts disregarding counterintuitive reasoning. But I still need to investigate my theory as the understanding of defying gravity using wings does not exist, although we do it!
The answer is hidden in physics somewhere we haven’t explored. (alcohol was helping me explore without reason)

Just a consideration - a paper aeroplane is powered by it’s launch (from our hand) it doesn’t fly without power. There would be a certain amount of stored energy from the throw that is lost during it’s flight path until gravity becomes the overriding force, as it slows due to drag and resistance.

As a paper plane is flat how does it have an aerofoil and generate lift (theoretical lift)?

I was considering the aircraft wing is attached to the aircraft and being powered to move forwards- not in free-fall. It was not an attempt at perpetual motion (a mythological theory to create something from nothing). ‘Nothing’ cannot exist! except in our ability to conceive delusional thoughts, ‘nothing’ is a delusion- it’s just not science!!! (though delusion is the human element that gives birth to discovery and reason)

Sticking to the complexity of ‘Lift’ (now relegated to a simple explanation to understand how a wing overcomes gravitational pull for high schoolers), we now have physical research suggesting it doesn’t exist. It must be another force! Something we haven’t explored… something that may be born from delusion or in an answer to other physical forces not yet applied to this equation.