Some very useful replies - (and a couple of useless,
), thanks guys.
MasterGreen - I like your explanation. Made it a lot clearer.
Mutt - I think it was said by many, long before Mr Boeing came along.
BEagle - you have quoted the CFS style approach to the question ......
........which really brings us to the question posed by a few of you "Does it matter?"
A different subject - but (for OZExpat, and others of the same frame of mind) one of the downsides of flight instruction is that every instructor is convinced that he/she is correct. This then brings us to the point that the definition of correct will likely be a matter of opinion - between the various instructors who state their own ideal as being the only correct one. You can read any number of threads in these forums and everybody argues that their posting is the facts of the case - and that anybody who argues is just plain wrong.
So, if that P of F exam mentioned by OzExpat, is a verbal one - administered by an examiner who may decide on the future of your position in the aviation industry - then I would think it quite important to be able to give him/her the answer that he/she wants. If it is a question of researching the individual examiners, to learn their favoured answer, then this really highlights the problem that BEagle brought up about instructor renewals being done by means of a mandatory flight and ground test with an examiner.
In which case, %MAC, MasterGreen, Checkboard, bookworm and OzExpat - it certainly does matter.
What I don't agree with is that I've spent 20 years of listening to instructors and reading Trevor Thom etc - all who tell me there are four forces and now - the people that MATTER (as far as this discussion goes) are telling me that there are only three.
Man has been flying for just short of 100 years now - surely somebody has sussed it out.