Playing with lift
An interesting thought, I shall have to ponder it a while. Or, perhaps enlist the expertise of a couple of our aerodynamicists on the matter. Ah, looking back, again, I see Dave has been here already, so I have sent an email off to Clive to see if he might have some thoughts to offer for the other end of his professional speed spectrum.
He claimed that such a ship was an impossibility .... I wonder how lift production in a hydrofoil "wing" traversing an incompressible fluid (water) varies from that of an aircraft wing encountering compressible airflow.
What a lovely shot. A bit above my little RL24 trailer sailer toy class, I'm afraid.
For lower speeds, we can treat air as incompressible with little error. While I have never done any work on hydrofoils, I don't see that they would be doing anything much different to a wing, so far as flow and forces are concerned. Some area, some camber, and a good dose of speed and away we go ?
Indeed, much work is done in water tanks ... the earlier link to Prandtl's 16mm movies relate to work done in a water tank. Air (at a suitably low speed) and water ... same, same ?