AIRPLANE FLIGHT ANALOGY

1997 William Beaty

The decades-old controversy about wings and the lifting force has a definite origin. It
arises because two-dimensional airfoils are used to teach us about pressure and flow
patterns... and then we apply those concepts to 3D wings.
This is a major mistake. The behavior of 3D wings is fundamentally different than the
behavior of 2D airfoils. Going from 2D to 3D is no trivial change.
In our 3D world, airplanes produce a downstream wake which carries away
downwards momentum, and constitutes a net downwash. The wing injects downwards
momentum into local air parcels, and this air moves downward long after the aircraft
has departed. We encounter this as a wide, descending air mass commonly labeled "tipvorticies."
But in the 2D world of the wind-tunnel, there is no such downward-moving wake
behind the wing. Instead, the 2D upwash must always be exactly equal to the 2D
downwash, and the wing does not push upon the air. Instead, all the momentum is
injected directly into the distant floor/ceiling. Even more important, 3D wings have
finite dimensions, while 2D wings act as if they have infinite span. An infinite
wingspan gives some exceeding strange results; results never produced by finite 3D
wings.
For example, if a 2D infinite wing should ever deflect even a tiny portion of the
oncoming air downwards (deflecting a streamline,) it would deflect an infinite amount
of air and produce an infinite lifting force. As a result, a 2D infinite airfoil does an odd
thing: it applies a finite force to an infinite mass of air. In response, a net amount of air
does NOT move downwards (since it has infinite mass.) The incoming and outgoing
streamlines remain horizontal. The wing acts like a reaction engine, but an engine
where the "exhaust gasses" have zero velocity and infinite mass. This strange effect
only applies to 2D airfoils and to infinitely wide wings, and obviously is never
encountered with 3D airplanes flying through 3D air.
The controversy about "Bernoulli versus Newton" is probably a controversy about
two-D wings versus three-D. It's a fight between the reaction- motor-like flight of real
wings, versus the instant-forces of ground-effect flight seen in airfoil diagrams and in
2D wind tunnels. It's a controversy over fluid propulsion versus venturi-effect, between
the the physics of short 3D wings in a 3D world, versus flight in strange a twodimensional "flatland" or "Dewdney Planiverse" world.
I attempt to explain the problem in words, but words are easily misunderstood
(especially on hot-button issues where emotions run high.) A visual analogy works
much better. Below is my explanation for how a three-dimensional airplane flies
through 3D air. It is very different than the typical 2D explanations found in most
textboooks. My "circulation" is flipped ninety degrees!

Imagine a huge, disk-shaped helium balloon floating in the air. The disk stands on
edge. It is weighted for neutral buoyancy so it neither rises nor sinks. A small platform
sticks out of its rim. (If you feel the need, you can imagine a counterweight on the
opposite rim to the platform, so the balloon hovers without rotating.) See fig. 1 below.
fig.
DISK-BALLOON WITH A SMALL PLATFORM
_____
_---_
/
\
__|
.
|
|
|
\_
_/
--_____--

Now suppose I were to leap from the top of a ladder and onto the balloon's small
platform. The balloon would move downwards. It would also rotate rapidly
counterclockwise, and I would be dumped off.
Next, suppose we have TWO giant disk-shaped balloons stacked adjacent to each
other like pancakes standing on edge.
fig.
TWO DISK-BALLOONS, STACKED ADJACENTLY
____
_-- _____
/ _---_
__| /
\
__|
.
|
|
|
\_
_/
--_____--

They do not touch each other. Both have platforms. If I jump onto the first platform,
but then I immediately leap onto the next platform, I can stay up there for a tiny bit
longer.
Next, suppose we have a row of these disk-balloons one KM long. It looks like fig. 2
above, but with hundreds of hovering balloons. Now I can run from platform to
platform, and I will stay aloft until I run out of balloons. Behind me I leave a trail of
rotating, downward-moving balloons. I can remain suspended against gravity
because I am flinging mass downwards. The mass takes the form of helium mass
trapped inside the balloons. I am also doing much more work than necessary, since

the energy I expend in rotating the balloons does not contribute to my fight against
gravity. (In truth, all my work is really not necessary, I could simply walk along the
Earth's surface with no need to move any massive gasbags!)
To make the situation more symmetrical, let me add a second row of platformbearing balloons in parallel to the first row:
fig.
END VIEW OF TWO LONG ROWS OF DISK- BALLOONS
_____
_____
_---_
_---_
/
\
/
\
|
.
|__
__|
.
|
|
|
|
|
\_
_/
\_
_/
--_____---_____--

There's one platform for each of my feet. I can run forwards, leaving a trail of "wake
turbulence" behind me. The "wake" is composed of rotating, descending balloons.
Fig. 4 below shows an animated GIF of this process.

Fig. 4 Forcing the balloons downwards

Also see: Smoke Ring animation

"DISK BALLOONS" BEHIND AIRPLANES

A 3D aircraft does much the same thing as me and my balloons: it remains aloft by
shedding vortices: by throwing down a spinning region of mass. This mass consists
of two long, thin, vortex-threads and the tubular regions of air which are constrained
to circulate around them. The balloons crudely represent the separatrix of a vortexpair: the cylindrical parcels of air which must move with closed streamlines.

So, how do airplanes fly? Real aircraft shed vortices. They inject momentum into air
which as a result moves downwards. They employ "invisible disk-balloons" to stay
aloft. The two rows of invisible balloons together form a single, very long,
downwards-moving cylinder of air. This single cylinder has significant mass and
carries a large momentum downwards. Airplane flight is vortex-shedding flight.
_____
_____
_---_
_---_
/
\
|
/
\
|
___
| fig.
5
|
|
___
| FRONT VIEW OF AIRCRAFT, w/AIR MASSES
|
---____/ ROTATED BY THE WINGS' PRESSURE
\____--| DIFFERENCE
\_
_/
\_/
\_
_/
--_____---_____--

\ fig.
6
THE CROSS-SECTION OF AN ACTUAL WAKE HAS
STREAM LINES WHICH DO NOT PERFECTLY
\
|
/
RESEMBLE A PAIR OF ROTATING BALLOONS. THE
______ BALLOONS ARE A CRUDE ANALOGY.
|
|
|
______
/
___
\
|
|
|
/
___ \
/
/
\
\
| | |
/
/
\
\
| | o | |
| | |
| |
o | |
\
\___/
/
|
|
|
\
\___/
/
\_______/
|
|
|
\_______/
|

\
/

The downward-moving "reaction exhaust" below a wing, made visible.

The
aircraft
flys
horizontally
above
the
fog
bank,
while
the
vortex-pattern
descends
into
the
fog.
(See Hyperphysics and other photos.)

Scanned laser smoke downwash

FLY FASTER FOR LESS DRAG?
My forward speed makes a difference in how much work I perform. If I walk slowly
along my rows of balloons, each platform sinks downwards significantly. I must

always leap upwards to the next platform, and each balloon is thrown violently
downward as I leap. I tire quickly. On the other hand, if I run very fast, my feet
touch each platform briefly, the balloons barely move, and the situation resembles
my running along the solid ground.
Similarly, if a real aircraft flies slowly, it must fling the vortex-pairs violently
downward. It performs extra work and experiences a very large "induced drag." If it
flies fast, it spreads out the necessary momentum-shedding across a much larger
volume of decending air, and therefore it needs only barely touch each mass-parcel
(each "balloon.") Hence, faster flight is desirable because it requires far less work to
be performed in moving the air downwards. And if a slowly-flying, heavily-loaded
aircraft should fly very low over you, its powerful wake vortices will blow you over
and put dust in your eyes.
All of my reasoning implies that modern aircraft actually remain aloft by vortexshedding; by launching a long chain of combined "smoke rings" downwards.
Imagine one of the flying cars in the old 'Jetsons' cartoon, the ones with those little
white rings shooting down out of the underside. But rather than launching a great
number of individual rings, modern aircraft throw just one very long ring
downwards, and they are lifted by the upward reaction force.

A CRUDE PREDICTION
How well does the "disk balloons" model correspond to the real world? Well, we can
pull an equation out of the motions of the balloons, and use it to predict both aircraft
energy-use and induced drag. If the equation is at all similar to the actual
aerodynamics of a real-world airplane, then the "disk balloons" are a useful model. If
my equation turns out to be faulty, then my model only has weak ties with reality.
Suppose the "disk-balloons" contain air which rotates as a solid object, (or imagine
radial membranes in the balloons. Or stuff them with aerogel.) If I then add together
the work done in creating the circulatory flow, plus the work done in projecting the
constrained air downwards, I arrive at a predicted aircraft power expenditure of:
Power = 8 * (M * g)^2 / [ pi * span^2 * V * density ]
M * g being aircraft weight, V is velocity of horizontal flight, and "density" is the
density of air. Induced drag should then be power/V:
Induced Drag = 8 * (M * g)^2 / [ pi * span^2 * V^2 * density ]
What happens if I assume that the air within the disk-balloons is not "solid", but
instead it's made to whirl faster near the center of the balloon, such that
the tangential velocity of the air is constant, regardless of its distance from the
center of the balloon? (Imagine a wing which produces a downward velocity
of netdownwash which is constant at each point along the whole span of the wing.)
If the "downwash" is constant across the wingspan, then the modified "balloon
equation" predicts a power expenditure of 2x that above.
How does this match reality? I'm looking for information on this at the moment. I'm

told that these two equations are identical to the equations of real aircraft, except that
the number "8" is replaced by a factor which is dependent upon the particular
geometry of the wing. So, calculated from first principles, without prior instruction
in fluid dynamics. Pretty good for an "amateur aerodynamicist", eh?
One final note. The downwash vortices of real airplanes contains rapidly rotating air.
This represents wasted energy, since only the "shell" of each "balloon" needs to
rotate as the region of air moves downwards. Is there a wing which can produce a
downwash vortex-pair without any spinning cores? Maybe it would use less fuel
than modern wings.

(See also J. Denker's critique and my response, 8/99)

LINKS

Water Striders fling underwater vortices (DL Hu, Nature Aug 2003) and vortices
imaged

Harvard U: Fish Gotta Swim

Wakes in flapping flight

Applet: flow around doublet/vortex etc.

Applet: flow in venturi

Vortex gallery: lift-generated vortices

Misc. thought experiments

If a balloon inside a sealed chamber experiences an upwards force, well, Newton'd 3rd
must be obeyed, so where does the down-force appear? Obviously it appears as a slight
increase in static pressure on the floor of the chamber. The balloon accelerates upwards,
and the chamber accelerates downward, conserving momentum. Now if our balloon
carries a load, and load KD is adjusted so it hovers in level flight, what then? The downforce of the load is exactly countered by the buoyancy up-force of the balloon ...but the
physics isn't local-only. Therefore, the floor of the chamber must experience a small
pressure increase, exactly equal to the weight of the suspended mass. (And no, we
cannot eliminate the weight of a truck's load upon the Earth by suspended the load via
balloons! If the chamber is sealed, the balloons cannot reduce the weight of the truck. If
the balloons are outside the chamber, then the "footprint" of down-force wide across the
ground, but it still nets to exactly the weight of the suspended mass.

OK, how about this one. Suppose I'm high above the ground, and I have a huge piston
and cylinder. I pull the piston out; forming an evacuated volume inside the cylinder. I
pull it so far out that the buoyant force now lifts the weight of the cylinder, piston, and
myself (I'm that strong.) I'm now suspended, hovering. So, what is the footprint of my
weight upon the ground? :) And, what are the dynamic changes, if any, since the ground
cannot experience force-changes except after speed-of-sound propagation delays.

Fuente: <http://amasci.com/wing/rotbal.html>