<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">The theory boys ignore the fact that without wingtip vortices there would be no lift. A wing of infinite span creates no lift (Kermode). So wind tunnel experiments do not explain lift unless the wing is complete (ie has wing tips in the flow).</font>
Well that's one of the more absurd assertions of this thread! Reference from Kermode please, bunyip, so we can see the context?
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">A flat plate creates lift, even at a small angle of attack, when I would assume no flow separation would occur, so the difference in speed of the particles would not be great.</font>
What do you mean by "flow separation" here? If you mean "some air flows over the plate, some under", I beg to differ. That's exactly what happens. You might want to look at
http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/how/htm...sec-thin-wings to see the difference in speed.