Re: misconceptions (physics of flight)
Dear Colleagues,
As part of training as a Naval Aviator I took "flight
engineering" course at Pensacola 1981. The recent discussion
regarding misconceptions of flight took me to my attic stacks of old
texts. Sure enough, right under the chapter explaining the physics
of flight via the Bernoulli explanation was a diagram that showed two Oxygen
atoms being separated -- one to flow over the wing and one to flow under the
wing. The text explained that atmospheric Oxygen was, of course, a diatomic
molecule and that the leading edge of the wing separated the atoms in the
molecule. To further this lunacy, the two oxygen atoms were depicted
as being attached by springs, apparently to explain that the attraction of the
Oxygen atoms for one another grew as they were separated.
Now, we were all a pretty smart group -- in my class several of us had
physics or engineering degrees from top-notch schools. Our instructor was
a GA Tech grad. Alas, none of us challenged these blatant
misconceptions.
Now all this seems laughable -- I wonder why it didn't then? Perhaps
our inattention was a result of a preoccupation on the abuse du jour being planned by our
Marine DI. Regardless, when I think of the poor chaps who lives were
devastated by being washed out of flight school, I recall Einstein's musing
that:. “It is sad to think of all the science students who were
failed for not knowing things we later learned were not true.”
Best Regards,
K.
P.S. And to think we later flew at 400 knots 200 feet off the
deck in machines designed by the same folks who wrote the engineering
text! Regardless, it was great to be a
"pre-tailhook" tailhooker -- apparently living in blissful
social and scientific ignorance!