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Why Airplanes Actually Fly: The Textbook Explanation Is Mostly Wrong
@garagelab
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2026-05-16 04:00:32
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The standard textbook explanation for airplane lift goes like this: the wing is curved on top and flat on the bottom, air traveling over the curved top has farther to go, so it moves faster, and by Bernoulli's principle, faster air has lower pressure, creating lift. This explanation has one significant problem: it's largely incorrect. The 'longer path' assumption — that air molecules split at the leading edge must rejoin at the trailing edge — is simply not true. Air over the top arrives before air on the bottom. The actual physics of lift involves circulation theory, the Kutta condition, and the net downward deflection of air by the wing. Bernoulli's principle plays a role, but not the one the textbook describes.
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