The issue that I don't understand is the apparant chicken & egg situation regarding high velocity/low pressure over the top of the wing.
To simplify and paraphrase Bernoulli, the sum of the static and dynamic pressures is constant, so if the flow velocity is high then the dynamic pressure increases and the static pressure will drop. Fine.
Why is velocity of air over the wing faster? Well, the pressure above the wing is lower than the static pressure away from the wing - there must therefore be a force acting on a parcel of air passing over the wing and thereby accelerating it (the force is just proportional to grad(P) / rho -> larger pressure gradient = stronger force). However, the pressure is low because the velocity is high - the arguement seems circular.
Hopefully I've explained my confusion - but what am I missing? After this point I can understand splitting the airflow into equal velocity & circulatory components, that Kutta-Zhukovsky tells you that lift is proportional to circulation (amongst other things) and the rest of it. It may not explain everything, but I'm happy with it. It's just the origin of the pressure and velocity fields that I'm having trouble understanding.
