"The truth shall set you free... But first it will piss you off." -Anonymous

William Langewische is quoted as saying in his 1944 classic Stick and Rudder that, “…the explanation is more puzzling than the puzzle.”  Certainly private pilots, not to mention most

commercial and military pilots, would not think so.  Quickly reciting the “FAA Approved” definition that lift is a result of air molecules having some sort of holy aspiration to meet at the trailing edge of a curved airfoil.  And in order for this assemblage at the trailing edge to occur the molecules on top have to travel faster.  Who could refute such insight?  Simply open a college level physics book or just refer to the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge.  It is all there with diagrams of airflow and concise statements leading up to an intuitive understanding how Bernoulli’s Principle works into the entire scheme. Typically the explanation stops there and no further questions are asked.  The explanation is not entirely wrong, however, it does have some glaring inconsistencies.  First of all, the theory of equal transit times is completely false.  The air molecules have no desire to meet each other at the trailing edge.  Simple observation of airflow patterns around a wing show how the molecules above the wing are the first ones to see the trailing edge.  Secondly, if the curvature of the wing caused the lower pressure it would make it impossible for aircraft to fly upside down.  Also, if the traditional explanation were true it would fail to explain how an aircraft with a symmetrical airfoil even gets off the ground.  These common misconceptions could probably fill up a book (actually they do), however, it is not my purpose to refute or explain in detail how an airfoil really works.  I think that the pilot should merely be made aware that they are not getting the whole truth.  But let’s be honest, the majority of pilots are satisfied with what they know about lift and don’t care to research it further.  It can be mentally agonizing to sift through pages of technical literature only to discover more confusion.   Simply hanging your hand out a car window will satisfy most. For those who enjoy reading the FAR/AIM front to back as well as devoted CFI’s may find this an interesting subject to research.  I am not going to attempt to explain it myself since I am not an aerodynamicist and to be honest I still don’t completely understand the subject.  There are plenty of resources availiable in the vastness of the web, and I am here to give you a platform to convince yourself what lift is all about.  Simply click here be taken to my lift links. As a CFI one may ask, “So how do I explain this to my student?”  This is certainly a touchy subject.  The student pilot is there to get a license to fly - not to philosophize about lift.  I think that it is possible to come up with an explanation that both satisfies the FAA and I write this article because I have always strived to question things that don’t seem to make sense.  When I started my CFI, lift was a subject that just didn’t seem to add up.  Upon further research I found that it really didn’t.  As my aviation career progressed I realized that questioning things not only in theory but in every day life was important.

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"I'll run my hand gently over the wing of a small airplane and say to him, "This plane can teach you more things and give you more gifts than I ever could. It won't get you a better job, a faster car, or a bigger house. But if you treat it with respect and keep your eyes open, it may remind you of some things you used to know -- that life is in the moment, joy matters more than money, the world is a beautiful place, and that dreams really, truly are possible." And then, because airplanes speak in a language beyond words, I'll take him up in the evening summer sky and let the airplane show him what I mean." — Lane Wallace, 'Eyes of a Child,' Flying magazine, February 2000.

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