.Airflow Debate - After all this time

[larrycavan]

I happend on this when doing some research .

I would have thought the science behind this was fully understood and accepted. Guess NOT. ???

[Scott]

There are many things taught which can be interpreted various ways, as far as kids go, I see education as more of a mind broadening exercise. I may get flamed for this, but I would rather see a teacher, teach a concept that is wrong as in the article, than to teach his or her beliefs as many do. Most of the teachers/professor's I have been educated by were very liberal and had no problem sharing their beliefs to some easily influenced people. Now, I dont care what political denomination anyone is, its a free country and I understand how hard it is to teach, especially these days, but sometimes its hard for a student rationalize between fact and opinion. As far as air foils go, I always like the long side/short side theory the best. It looks like a glass half full/half empty thing. Maybe both theories are correct, depending on application.

[larrycavan]

Airplanes have been flying for a century now. They've developed into machines that would absolutely amaze the early pioneers of the effort.

Logic would deem that the initial pioneers had some handle on the physics involved with wing design. Afterall, it did fly and there was application of theory to accomplish that.

From those early designs further development brought about improvements. The question is if the original theory was wrong, how in the world did further development yield success if it was based on incorrect understandings?

Read the articles attached to the links on that web page. It's pretty interesting material.

With flowbenches we all try to get a handle on what happens to air as it moves through confined, varying sized and shaped passages. Our efforts are on focused in improving the efficiency of the passage.

For aircraft engineers, it's rather the opposite as their work is conducted generally on what the effects of air are on varying sized and shaped objects as they move through the air. Their efforts are focused on improving the efficiency of the object.

Both areas of study involve airflow. If commonly accepted science is proven to be wrong for one application, then it stands to reason that the other group should examine the new understandings closely and see if/how it applys to their efforts...

JMO

Larry C