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Old 6th September 2003 | 02:18
  #4 (permalink)  
bookworm
 
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,648
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From: UK
Bottom line is that they all are specific explanations to serve particular functions. In the right context, each is perfectly correct - but the people who go about saying that Bernoulli is wrong are technically correct - albeit also usually irritatingly unhelpful.
Only if you persist in mislabelling the equal-transit-time argument as "Bernoulli". If you calculate the velocities at the wing surface and use Bernoulli's theorem to deduce the static pressures, you get the right answer.

The issue is not whether the stream of air over the upper surface travels faster, but why. None of the popular explanations of lift do a very good job of that.
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