Aerodynamics RCSD-2012-05 PDF

SoaringDigest
Radi C ntr lled
May 2012 Vol. 29, No. 5
Upper Streamline Pressure Trough Wave
7U
6U
5U
4U
3U
1.0
2U
1U 0.5
Scales, Coefficients of Pressure

0U 0.0
-0.5
7U -1.0
6U -1.5
5U
-2.0
4U
3U
1.0
2U
1U 0.5
0L 0U&L 0.0
1L 1L
2L 2L
3L 3L
4L 4L
5L 5L
6L 6L
Streamlines © 2011 Philip Randolph
Lower Streamline Pressure Ridge Wave e393 plots by S. Allmaras
-1.0
-1.5
-2.0
CP2
-2.5
-3.0
-3.5
-4.0
Upper and lower pressure waves along streamlines. Energy though leaking a little to wingtip vortices. The pressure gradient
in springs is stored either by compression or stretch. Waves down toward the low pressures above the wing bends flows
along a spring are an exchange of momentum for tension or down, and keeps flows “attached” to the wing. The equal and
compression. It’s the same for pressure gradients — raised or opposite force, the difference between low-pressures above the
lowered, they store energy, that around a wing is temporarily wing and slightly raised pressures below, is lift.
exchanged for velocity of air, kinetic energy. Such energy © 2011 Philip Randolph, e393 plot by S. Allmaras
patterns are “carried along” in constant relation to the wing,
May 2012
CONTENTS Vol. 29, No. 5
Front cover: A bit different than the usual RCSD cover.
Figure 22: Upper and lower pressure waves along streamlines.
© 2011 Philip Randolph, e393 plot by S. Allmaras.
From the feature article in this issue, starting on page 4.
Black Eagle PSS Festival 55

Event announcement from Two Oceans Slope Soarers,
Cape Town, South Africa
2012 F3F World Championships 55
Event announcement from Deutscher Aero Club e.V.,
Kap Arkona, Germany
2012 Cumberland Soar-for-Fun 60
3 RC Soaring Digest Editorial The third year of the Spring Edition is covered
4 Frederick William Lanchester's Aeroclub Israel

by Pete Carr
phenomenal, 1894
WAVE THEORY OF LIFT F5J Juniors Competition 68
Rene Wallage provides coverage of an event designed to
"the wave on the crest of which the aerofoil rides..."
breathe new life into the Israeli F5J scene. With photos
Lost discoveries of the nineteenth century? Isn’t
by Ari Silbermintz
that like something out of Jules Verne? A superb,
physical, intuitive, theory of lift, a theory mathematically Introducing...
compatible with modern, applied aerodynamics —
missed, dismissed, and with only a couple exceptions,
Jack Pak RC Sailplane Carrying Bags 78
RC sailplanes are getting larger and John Marien is
forgotten? A theory that explains wing energy recovery producing reasonably priced padded bags big enough
and efficiency like no other? A tragic turning point in to carry them.
aerodynamic history? A scientist embittered as credit
for his ideas went to others, the stature he should have
enjoyed perhaps posthumously redeemable by the one Back cover: Another shot of Thomas Truffo's Supra
invaluable idea to which the aerodynamic paid little soaring over the gentle slopes of Pianoro, Bologna, Italy.
attention? By Philip Randolph Photo by Francesco Meschia.
Nikon D70s, ISO 200, 1/400 sec., f10, 70mm
2 R/C Soaring Digest

R/C Soaring Digest In the Air
May 2012
Volume 29 Number 5 Philip Randolph, long time contributor to RCSD with
articles on dynamic soaring, CEWAMS journals, and other
miscellaneous topics, is the author of the feature article for
this issue. As is usual with Philip's material, the illustrations
Managing Editors, Publishers B2 Kuhlman
are extremely well done and help immensely in getting
concepts across to readers. This treatise has been a "work
Contact rcsdigest@centurytel.net
http://www.rcsoaringdigest.com
in progress" for more than year, and it truly is an honor for
Yahoo! group: RCSoaringDigest RCSD to publish this material.
A couple of upcoming events are worthy of note:
R/C Soaring Digest (RCSD) is a reader-written monthly
publication for the R/C sailplane enthusiast and has been
First on the calendar is the Black Eagle Trophy PSS Festival
published since January 1984. It is dedicated to sharing put on by the Two Oceans Slope Soarers, Cape Town,
technical and educational information. All material contributed South Africa. PSS or Power Scale Soaring is a description
must be original and not infringe upon the copyrights of others. of a non-powered slope soaring glider that is modelled after
It is the policy of RCSD to provide accurate information. Please
let us know of any error that significantly affects the meaning a real, full size aeroplane that required a power plant for
of a story. Because we encourage new ideas, the content of sustained flight and has flown a manned flight as a full size
each article is the opinion of the author and may not necessarily aircraft. This event will consist of the following four classes:
reflect those of RCSD. We encourage anyone who wishes to Expert Class, Sportsman’s Heavy Class, Sportsman’s Light
obtain additional information to contact the author.
Class, and Combat Class. See page 55 <http://www.toss.
——— co.za/index.php/black-eagle-pss-festival/23-black-eagle-
Copyright © 2012 R/C Soaring Digest pss-festival/18-pss-festival-2012> for more information.
Published by B2Streamlines <http://www.b2streamlines.com> And this year is the first year for a World Championships
P.O. Box 975, Olalla WA 98359
All rights reserved in F3F Slope Soaring Model Aircraft. It is to be held in
Germany in October of this year. See Bulletin 1 <http://www.
——— f3f.de/fileadmin/user_upload/f3f/WC_F3F_2012/12_F3F_
RC Soaring Digest is published using Adobe InDesign CS5 WCh_Bulletin_1.pdf>, reproduced in full in this issue starting
on page 55.
Time to build another sailplane!
May 2012 3
a couple exceptions, forgotten? A theory that explains wing
energy recovery and efficiency like no other? A tragic turning
point in aerodynamic history? A scientist embittered as credit
“the wave on the crest of which for his ideas went to others, the stature he should have enjoyed
the aerofoil rides…” perhaps posthumously redeemable by the one invaluable idea
to which the aerodynamic paid little attention?
Frederick William Lanchester’s Let’s go straight to conclusions: The modern, ‘bound-

vortex/circulation’ theory of lift gave us excellent, applied,
phenomenal, 1894, mathematical aerodynamics, yet is terrible for understanding
flight forces, lift and drag. The more ways one can grasp
something, the better. Wave approaches to lift are physically
WAVE THEORY OF LIFT and intuitively excellent for understanding flight, and are
consistent with the same applied mathematics. There are also
a number of other excellent ways to understand flight, including
Philip Randolph, amphioxus.philip@gmail.com ©2011 centripetal/centrifugal forces; most are beyond the scope of this
article.
The physical-intuitionist who theorized the upwash ahead
of a wing, trailing vortices, and vortex drag, who provided the Abandonment of a theory
correct explanation for the lift of travelling spinning spheres, As the nineteenth century verged into the twentieth,
first observed by Newton, and who conceptually applied similar the beginnings of our rather counterintuitive, modern theory
‘circulation’ lift to wings, had one more, incredibly important of ‘bound-vortex circulation’ lift briefly had a twin. They might
notion. have merged into a more complete aerodynamics, for a then-
Never completely lost, but mainly viewed as a quaint century-old paper could have shown their equivalence. But,
by-product of more influential thinking, it failed to reach public as with some newborn bird chicks, hyena cubs, and parasitic
consciousness. It is, literally, the other half of aerodynamics. wasps, in which siblicide is common, the firstborn theory
Supported here by five other wave analyses, it is fact: A dominated. The mathematics of ‘vortex-circulation’ lift worked,
wing creates (forces) a wave that both recovers and recycles although conceptually, ‘circulation’ was so difficult to correctly
pressure and velocity energies. In pattern and forces it is oddly visualize that, for the better part of the twentieth century,
similar to surface waves, with upwash ahead rising to a crest, wild myths (‘equal transit times,’ the ‘longer-path notion, and
downwash behind. The wing, much like wave-riding canal boats associated Bernoulli misinterpretations) persisted. What was
of 1830s Scotland, essentially surfs within these flows. more accurate, and invaluable, did not.
Lost discoveries of the nineteenth century? Isn’t that
like something out of Jules Verne? A superb, physical, intuitive,
theory of lift, a theory mathematically compatible with modern,
applied aerodynamics — missed, dismissed, and with only

For the first four years of developing what has partly
turned out to be reinvention,1 and what he often thought of
as ‘19th century science,’ your author wondered why a wave
theory of lift wasn’t published long ago. It had been. Frederick
William Lanchester (1868 - 1946), an English automobile
manufacturer, and later the co-developer of military game
theory, or ‘operational systems, presented his concept of a
“supporting wave” as part of his 1894 talk to the Birmingham
Natural History and Philosophical Society. A version of
the diagram in Figure 1 hung on the wall.1 Rewritten as the
most prescient aerodynamics paper of all time, in 1897 the
prestigious Physical Society of London rejected it. 2 3 As did
Lanchester, in a longer, slower process.
Lanchester had brilliantly mapped out the forces and Lanchesters ‘supporting wave’ diagram, with thin-arc wing, used in his 1894 presentation. He only applied such
flows around wings, his ‘peripteral system,’ from which the Figure
symmetry and 1:perfect
Lanchester’s
lift to infinitly long ;supporting wave’
wings in inviscid (frictionless), diagram,
incompressible fluids.used inwashis
The airfoil
curved to match the path of air, to avoid ‘discontinuities’ at leading and trailing edges, a requirement later known
wave and trailing vortex systems were conclusions. Lanchester 1894 presentation.
as the ‘Kutta condition.’ He only applied such symmetry and perfect
asserted that the wing wave, like all waves, salvages and lift to infinitly long wings in inviscid (frictionless), incompressible © 2011 Philip Randolph
recycles energy, greatly decreasing the energy required fluids. The airfoil was curved to match the path of air, to avoid
for flight. He came very close — he had the elements — to ‘discontinuities’ at leading and trailing edges, a requirement
describing how it does so, and to assembling his elements later known as the ‘Kutta condition.’ Flows over a subsonic wing
into a coherent picture of flight. How he got lost, and where he in lift always show waveform, with upwash ahead rising to a
nearly went, is part of the story. crest, and downwash behind. © 2011 Philip Randolph
Lanchester’s 1897 paper, with its wave theory, is
approximately preserved as the first half of Chapter IV in his
Aerodynamics, Constituting a First Volume, of two, published
in 1907 and 1908. His second book was devoted to stability
issues based on models he called ‘aerodromes’ or ‘aerodones’
— hence its awkward name, aerodonetics. In these two
volumes, dwarfed by 875 pages of erudite verbal haze,4 are a
few time capsules of productively isolated thinking and ideas
1 Your author found Lanchester, and a short reference

to his wave theory, in Olivier Darrigol’s superb, Worlds of
Flow, A history of hydrodynamics from Bernoulli to Prandtl,
and immediately ordered his two aerodynamics volumes on
interlibrary loan. Since they have been digitized by Google.
May 2012 5
that would become fundamental to aerodynamics, including thought was superior. In 1908 Lanchester met in Germany
‘upwash’ and the trailing vortex system. It also contains nearly with the founding fathers of twentieth century mathematical
his last mention of his wave idea. ‘Wave’ isn’t even a heading in aerodynamics, Ludwig Prandtl and his gifted student, Theodore
his index. von Kármán. Von Kármán later wrote, of Lanchester’s 1897
His first two chapters also contain some of his earlier paper:
work, and discussions of streamlined forms and their pressure …these learned societies had turned down a major work.
and energy recoveries, viscosity, boundary layers, all areas This surprising blunder occurred because Lanchester did
where he made at least partial contributions. His first chapter not have… formal training in… mathematical form… and
also contains a brief but monumental achievement, the correct hence his colleagues found him difficult to understand.
analysis of the lift on a spinning ball. This would form the He also had a tendency to make up scientific terms. He
conceptual basis of modern circulation lift theory. And then called the vortex motion “peripteral motion,” and vortices
things changed: “forced waves.”6 - von Kármán, The Wind And Beyond,
After the rejection of his paper, Lanchester studied 1960
Horace Lamb’s Hydrodynamics, in attempt to rewrite his Considered in the light of wave motion, the peripteroid
theory along “more orthodox hydrodynamic lines.” system must be regarded as a forced wave, the aerofoil
In the present chapter [IV], on wing form and the supplying a force acting from without – Lanchester, 19077
motion of the fluid in its vicinity, the main argument and What von Kármán missed, as we’ll see via the 1802
demonstration are taken without substantial alteration wave theory of Franz Josef von Gerstner, is that waveform and
from the rejected paper, the subsequent work being a ‘vortex motion’ (circulation) are inseparable. With its upwash
revision of the theory on more orthodox hydrodynamic ahead rising to a crest and downwash behind, the flows past a
lines.5 – Lanchester, 1907 wing are in waveform, the sum of vortex ‘circulation’ plus linear
“More orthodox” meant abandoning his wave approach velocity.
in favor of more counterintuitive concepts of ‘circulation,’ and That these European aerodynamicists failed to
‘vortex,’ via a deeply flawed, ‘circulation’ theory of the lift understand Lanchester’s wave approach was perhaps the
of cannonballs spinning on an axis crosswise to travel, first result of one of those odd, geographic splits of scientific
published by Gustav Magnus, in 1852. (We’ll make this difficult consciousness. After 1825, wave theory had become mainly
‘circulation’ concept intelligible.) From what was incorrect for English turf.8 Toward the end of the century, continental
the veer of spinning round shot, Lanchester built the conceptual theorists focused on the vortex theory of Hermann von
side of the valid modern theory of ‘circulation’ lift for wings. Helmholtz. We’ll visit the 1834 English origins of forced wave
(The mathematics of circulation lift was derived independently theory, of which the wing wave is an example. Yet in his native
by Lord Rayleigh in 1877, by Wilhelm Kutta in 1902, and by England, Lanchester’s work was politely received but mostly
Nikolai Joukowski in 1906.) ignored. It didn’t help that he was a wordy, often unclear writer.
It’s a hard transition to watch, a theorist giving up on As Prandtl later put it, ‘Lanchester’s treatment is difficult
his own way of thinking in favor of a status quo he mistakenly to follow, since it makes a very great demand on the

reader’s intuitive perceptions.’ Only a reader who would from the rooftops, remained of consistent character, not quite
have known the results to be essentially correct [John convinced of the importance of his wave theory.
D. Ackroyd, Oliver Darrigol, and your author] would have It wasn’t that Lanchester’s wave theory was unknown.
bothered penetrating the carmaker’s odd reasoning.9 – It was more that no one figured out what to do with it. Prandtl,
Olivier Darrigol, Worlds of Flow during WWI, had built Lanchester’s bound vortex/circulation
Yet despite his prolyx, ‘peripteral,’ Lanchester’s initial and trailing vortex system into his ‘lifting line’ model, the first
focus on the actual flow motions around wings, rather than method of predicting the lift and drag of a proposed wing. See
his later forced conformity to idealized vortex and ‘circulation’ Figure 15. He published in 1918 - 1919. Prandtl got great credit,
patterns, was highly productive. Mathematically, Lanchester Lanchester little recognition, till later. But no one converted
was not on a par with his colleagues. Conceptually, he was the Lanchester’s wave theory into the mathematics of either applied
eight-hundred pound gorilla. But he didn’t know it, and allowed engineering or theoretical aerodynamics. The two authors who
himself to be pushed around, and discouraged, by his fellow did discuss Lanchester’s wave theory mentioned it more as a
semi-sapient simian primates. Semi-sapient, as we all are, in by-product of the early thinking that produced his recognized
the mix of knowledge and ignorance that is progress. contributions.
After Prandtl and von Kármán’s incomprehension, The most extensive examination of Lanchester’s
Lanchester would never again even weakly champion his wave aerodynamics was by John Ackroyd, first in a 1992 “Journal
theory. Aeronautics” article, that then forms the basis of the first of
two chapters in The Lanchester Legacy, Volume Three, 1996.
A century in which wing wave theory quietly sleeps The book is rare. For my five bucks, Seattle Public Library’s
Interlibrary Loans had to have it shipped all the way from
And herein is the odd split: Throughout the twentieth
Great Britain! Ackroyd validates Lanchester’s early thinking
century, Lanchester’s wave theory has been read, occasionally
and, somewhat in passing, his wave theory, roughly on the
elucidated, even quietly verified, but never particularly valued.
centennial of its birth.10
It has been as a retrograde zombie, waiting till someone might
give it bite, and thus bring it to life. John D. Anderson, Jr., in, A History of Aerodynamics11
and in Fundamentals of Aerodynamics12 describes Lanchester’s
Lanchester’s early and later aerodynamics were always
early and later aerodynamics, sans wave. As does Olivier
moderately well known and studied, especially in Germany
Darrigol, who does briefly mention Lanchester’s conclusion
and France, after the translations of Aerodynamics in 1909 and
of a supporting wave, in his 1995, Worlds of flow, A History
1914, respectively. Credit for much of his thinking came late. It
of Hydrodynamics from the Bernoullis to Prandtl.13 I found
is now recognized that he was indeed the conceptual founder
Lanchester through Darrigol in 2008. I’d been writing about
of modern aerodynamics.
wave lift for a few years. The words ‘supporting wave’ caught
We who dig through old ideas are in a way possessed me. I ordered Lancheser’s two volumes on interlibrary loan, and
by the authors who speak through us. It is as if the ghost of then found them on Google Books.
Lanchester, speaking through his various biographers and
All the above authors are excellent. None dragged
aerodynamic historians, rather than belatedly shouting his truth
Lanchester’s wave theory into public consciousness.
May 2012 7
If Lanchester had been someone to doggedly shout his
truth, perhaps his fellow gentlemen scientists, Lords Kelvin
or Rayleigh, might have suggested that he look at John Scott
Russell’s 1839 theory of wave lift, for canal boats, or Franz
Josef von Gerstner’s 1802 deep ocean wave studies. With
those, this article could have been written over a hundred years
ago, and the course of aerodynamics changed. If.
Before looking at Lanchester’s wave theory, we’ll cover
some ‘circulation’ basics — the convoluted history of the
concept, and Gerstner’s 1802 theory of the inseparability
of ‘circulation’ and wave. It’s a theory that could have
integrated Lanchester’s wave theory of lift with the surviving
concept of ‘circulation lift.’ Lanchester both failed to widen
wing aerodynamics into wave theory, and narrowed it into
the mysteries of ‘circulation-lift’ theory. ‘Circulation’ worked
mathematically. Combined with the academician’s attraction
to unintelligibility, circulation has gone beyond paradigm to a
century of aerodynamic tunnel vision. A sidebar should make
© 2011 Philip Randolph
wing ‘circulation’ intelligible. How ‘circulation’ relates to lift,
mathematically or by centrifuging, is another question.
Circulation
Figure 2: Asymmetrical ‘circulation’ disturbances of previously ‘Circulation’ was such a mysterious concept that its
still air by a passing wing. This is the pattern a flashbulb would mathematical relation to lift was correctly established before
capture, after dark, just as a wing was passing, if the air were correct physical concept, either for ‘curve balls’ or for wings.
filled with cottonwood tufts. © 2011 Philip Randolph Here we’ll give a correct visualization.
‘Circulation’ is an instantaneous pattern of ‘bound
vortex’ asymmetrical velocities that sticks with the wing even as
its component molecules are left behind.
Watching as air flows in wave-shaped streamlines past
a wing is the wind tunnel perspective, and here, the wave
perspective. We can also watch air, to see how it is disturbed
as a wing passes through it. From this ‘previously-still-air,’
‘passing-wing,’ perspective, we can ‘see’ the asymmetric
velocities of circulation. See Figure 2.14

Picture still air full of cottonwood tufts. It’s night. We affix
a camera to a tall tripod with a motion sensor. The flash goes
off just as a long, lightly loaded wing passes. The cottonwood
tufts make short streaks, in a pattern of motion around the
wing, moving back above (in relation to their previous stillness),
down behind, weakly forward below, up ahead. This ‘bound-
vortex circulation’ pattern of motion sticks with the wing, even
as its component molecules are left behind. If we photographed
again just after the wing passed, the same tufts would be doing
something else — going down. New tufts, around the wing,
would take over the ‘circulation.’
Since circulation is an instantaneous pattern, with no air
molecules actually orbiting the wing, there is no requirement for
‘bound vortex’ symmetry.
As we’ll see, upper flows can be separated from lower
flows, as if by a steel membrane, without change to either. Then
‘circulation’ is just another way to say that velocities of curving
flows over a wing are strongly but temporarily increased, Figure 3: Horace Lamb’s 1895 interpretation of von Gerstner’s
while flows below are slowed. We’ll see how this increases 1802 deep-water wave-circulation diagram As a wave passes,
‘centrifuging’ of low pressures atop the wing. The difference the water that makes it up moves in complete circles, that
between these low pressures above and slightly raised diminish with depth.
pressures below is lift.
Lanchester’s main requirement for flow symmetry was
that as much air must go up, somewhere, as is thrown down.15
Air that curls up around wingtips doesn’t help lift and isn’t part
of circulation. Wave upwash air, ahead of the wing, is part of
circulation, and increases the centrifuging of the low pressure
above the wing. (See the ‘Centrifugal’ topic.) The difference
between low pressures above and higher pressures below
makes lift.
Franz Josef von Gerstner, 1802, and the

inseparability of wave and circulation
The observation that might have saved Lanchester’s
theory was not by an aerodynamicist. In 1802 the German
May 2012 9
knight-professor Franz Josef von Gerstner published diagrams Further, though without saying ‘wave,’ most introductory
of the circular motions within repetitive, deep-ocean surface aerodynamics texts include an illustration of how subtracting
waves. See Figure 3.16 Loci of water would move forward in the the ‘freestream’ velocity of flows (flow velocity far from
top half of a wave, as they rose to be overtaken by crest, and disturbance by a wing) from the wave-shaped flow over a wing
then fell. In the bottom half of the wave, they’d continue down, yields the ‘circulation’ component of motion.
moving back, as the trough passed and they again started
to rise, completing their circular path. The circular motion A proof that the math of circulation lift is the math
diminished with depth.17 Those who have floated in ocean of wave lift
waves have experienced this. Please see the animation of water
The common ‘circulation’ applied aerodynamics
waves, courtesy of Dr. Dan Russell, Grad. Prog. Acoustics,
equations of lift and drag work identically for the wave
Penn State, at <http://www.kettering.edu/physics/drussell/
perspective. Proof: The difference between the two
Demos/waves/wavemotion.html>.18
perspectives is a linear velocity, whether viewed as flow velocity
Von Gerstner’s wave theory remained well known. or wing velocity. Since it is a constant (unaccelerated, force
Papers followed, by gentlemen scientists — John Scott Russell, free), perspective makes no difference in force equations of
William Rankine,19 2 Lords Kelvin, and Horace Lamb.3 Sir Gabriel lift and drag. The equations and all methods of predicting
Stokes and Lord Rayleigh proved a slow, forward displacement lift and drag are a ‘bottom line’ for either. The transformation
of particles in such waves, rather than complete circles.20 (We’ll from ‘lifting line’ or ‘Lanchester-Prandtl wing theory’ (based on
see such horseshoe-shaped ‘displacement’ paths in how a bound-vortex circulation) is merely the addition of a constant
passing wing disturbs bits of air.) velocity (change of perspective), which makes no difference in
But 19th century published science tilted toward the output.
elaborate calculus, often inadequately balanced by clear For those who took calculus 101: This can also be
statement of concept. A simple, verbal generalization of demonstrated by the most basic of calculus, in which forces are
von Gerstner’s wave observation might have changed the first derivative of mass times velocity. Recall that in the first
aerodynamic history: All traveling waveforms contain and are derivative, constant velocities disappear. See Figure 4.21
defined by elliptical or partial elliptical motions of the mediums
Current supercomputer-crunched, computational fluid
through which they pass. That is, wave and ‘circulation’ are
dynamics (CFD) often derives the whole velocity field around a
inseparable.4
wing, in two or three dimensions, and performs mathematical
2 Rankine’s independent equivalent analysis is noted by operations on it. The changes of velocity in the field, times
Lamb, 412. density, yield the forces of the pressure gradient around the
3 Lamb’s Hydrodynamics illustration of Gerstner’s wave wave motions and restorative forces are at right angles to
circles is on page 412. propagation — e.g., the standing waves on a guitar string,
4 Waves are classified as ‘longtitudinal,’ ‘transverse,’ typically depicted on the x-axis. Wing waves and surface waves
and mixed, or two-dimensional. Longtitudinal waves have have a mix of motions and forces, in two dimensions, or more.
motions and restorative forces parallel to their propogation, In longitudinal waves, the y component of the elliptical motion is
e.g., sound waves, typically depicted on the x-axis. Transverse reduced to zero.

The inseparability of traveling waveform and circulatory velocities
+ =
The oscillating, vertical component of a circular motion is a ‘simple harmonic motion.’

Adding horizontal velocity makes a sine wave.
+ =
Adding a linear velocity to a circular motion makes a more complex waveform.

Lanchester graphed a non-repeating form of this ‘superposition’ of symmetrical circula-
tory and linear motions, to develop the concept of wing-circulation lift. Actual wing
circulation is not symmetrical. The math of circulation lift was independently derived by
Rayleigh, Kutta, and Joukowski.
Figure 4A: The inseparability of waveform and circulatory velocities. © 2011 Philip Randolph
May 2012 11
Circulation Perspective Wave/Wind Tunnel/Flow
Perspective
Observer velocity
increased to wing velocity
+ =
(adds apparent flow velocity,
relative to observer)
‘Adding’ a linear flow velocity to asymmetrical ‘circulation’ velocities makes an even

more complex waveform, the wing wave. But flow and circulation velocities are insepa-
rable. What we really change is the velocity of the observer.
Observer velocity
decreased to zero velocity
- (subtracts apparent flow velocity)
=
Wave/Wind Tunnel/Flow Perspective Circulation Perspective

Observer at velocity of wing, watching air pass Observer at velocity of air,
watching wing pass
Conversely, ‘subtracting’ the ‘freestream’ velocity from the streaming velocity field
around a wing reveals asymmetric ‘circulation,’ an instantaneous view of how a wing
disturbs air as it passes. A linear velocity is always present, whether viewed as flow ve-
locity or wing velocity, and since it is constant (unaccelerated, force free), perspective
makes no difference in force equations of lift and drag. Thus common ‘circulation’ ap-
plied aerodynamics equations of lift and drag work identically for the wave perspective.
Figure 4B: The inseparability of waveform and circulatory velocities. © 2011 Philip Randolph

wing, from which pressures at the wings surface can be derived He quickly determined that light, in the Newtonian world
and resolved into lift and drag. Whether the starting point is the of his darkened room, with a quarter-inch hole in the blind,
velocity field from the flow perspective (the wave perspective) through which sunlight streamed at his prism, does not curve.
or from the circulation perspective (the instantaneous velocities The English artillerist and brilliant experimentalist,
of previously still air disturbed by the passing wing) makes no Benjamin Robins, included Newton’s quote in his 1742, New
difference. Principles of Gunnery. Robins’ study of the ‘resistance’ and
‘veer’ of cannonballs were the first quantitative studies of
Circulation theory, from Newton to Lanchester, aerodynamic drag and lift, and changed European warfare.
and then Prandtl Robins observed that a sphere spinning on an axis crosswise
to flow would veer (lift) away from the side advancing into
I had often seen a tennis-ball, struck with an oblique
flow. He bent a musket barrel to the left, so its ball would gain
racket, describe such a curve line. For, a circular as well
a clockwise spin, laid it in a ‘socket,’ and watched as shots
as a progressive motion being communicated to it by
curved through successive paper targets. They started to the
that stroke, its parts, on that side where the motions
left, but impacted a wall some 300 feet distant well to the right
conspire, must press and beat the contiguous air more
of where a straight-barreled musket, in the socket, had aimed.25
violently than on the other; and there excite a reluctancy
and re-action of the air proportionably greater.22 23 – Isaac In 1852, Gustav Magnus attempted to explain Robins’
Newton, 1671 results.26 He asserted that the spin of the ball drags a ‘rotatory’
flow around it, which, as the ball travels, or as a flow is added,
Translation: On the side of the ball where its forward
he imagined to persist (true). He was mistaken about the
motion ‘conspires’ with the forward motion of its spin, friction
cause of circulation — such viscosity-created circular flows
drags air forward into previously still air, and pressure builds.
are immediately swept away by linear flows — but he was right
This is a very rough form of the Bernoulli equation of the
about the fact of circulation.
next century, or of a raised-pressure, standing wave, and the
best explanation till Lanchester’s diagram of unequal flow Magnus used Bernoulli’s law, uncredited, as a (weak)
attachment and centrifuging, which we’ll see. explanation of spinning ball lift.27 Bernoulli’s law asserts that
there will often be an exchange between pressure and velocity.
Newton had actually been trying to explain the properties
Circulatory flows on the advancing side of the ball slowed
of prismatic diffraction, initially suspecting,
linear flows, to which Bernoulli says to expect raised pressures.
…if the Rays of light should possibly be globular bodies, On the receding side of the ball, circulatory flows added to
and by their oblique passage out of one medium into linear flow velocities, for lowered pressures. The difference in
another acquire a circulating motion, they ought to pressures made the ball lift away from its advancing side.
feel the greater resistance from the ambient æther, on Bernoulli’s law seldom provides complete understanding.
that side, where the motions conspire, and thence be It’s a bottom line of other analyses. It predicts what must be,
continually bowed to the other.24 – Isaac Newton, 1671 rather than explaining how that takes place. Lord Rayleigh
astutely questioned the application of Bernoulli’s law as
explanation. Nevertheless, Magnus’ causally flawed analysis
May 2012 13
provided the basis for Rayleigh’s 1877, correct mathematics of
circulation lift. 28 Rayleigh’s formula was essentially the same
as Kutta’s 1902 equation, and as Joukowski’s 1906, better-
known, elegantly and deceptively simple equation for circulation
lift. Rayleigh applied his lift formula to tennis balls, but not to
wings.29
Lanchester probably diagrammed his correction of
Magnus, who he doesn’t mention, in the early 1890s, but
published in 1907. His wording needs translation. He wrote,
Now, where the direction of motion of the surface
of the ball is the same as the relative motion of the fluid,
… the surface will assist the stream in ejecting the dead
water…
He diagrammed how flows remain attached longer on
the side of the ball where spin and flow align, resulting in a
deflection of flows opposite to lift. The unequal attachment
makes a longer, tighter curve of flows on that receding side.
Lanchester correctly asserted that centrifuging by these curving
flows lowered the pressures there, and raised pressures on the
side advancing into flow. See Figure 5.
We may (Fig. 22) regard this reaction as the centrifugal
effect of the air passing over the ball preponderating greatly
Figure 5: Lanchester’s diagram of how a spinning ball lifts, over that of the fluid passing underneath…30 — Lanchester,
showing both upwash ahead and longer attachment of 1907
flows above. He attributed the lift to unequal centrifuging of Probably independently, Lanchester’s diagram also
pressures. Observe strongly centrifuged low pressures atop, shows a principle stated by Sir Gabriel Stokes in 1845, that if
weakly centrifugally raised pressures below. Centrifuging is there is a force on an object, there will be an opposite force on
stronger with a tighter, upper radius of flow curves, and upwash the fluid around it.31 Stokes had made explicit Newton’s cryptic,
ahead and longer attachment aft create a longer, deeper “re-action of the air.” Upward lift (of spinning balls or wings)
pressure gradient, for a greater cumulative drop in ‘upper’ bends air down, a fact not perceived by Magnus and other
pressure. post-Newton predecessors to Lanchester.
The forces on the lifted objects and on the air are from
pressure differences, and a usually minor bit of friction. Within
air, pressure differences are pressure gradients.

Figure 6: Wilhelm Kutta’s 1902 diagram of the lift of a thin, arc Figure 7: Nikolai Joukowski’s diagram of the lift of a spinning
wing. With mathematics divorced from concept, he neither vane device.
recognized waveform nor circulation around a wing, and yet
applied a ‘circulation’ factor to define his flows
May 2012 15
Three theorists independently developed the math of and not always technically correct, and the math of Kutta and
circulation lift. The first, as mentioned, was Lord Rayleigh, for Joukowski.38 See Figure 14.
curving tennis balls. In 1902, Wilhelm Kutta developed the Oddly, Lanchester must have read von Gerstner’s wave-
math of lift for a thin, arc-shaped wing, a simplified model of circulation analysis in Lamb,39 and yet did not use it to integrate
the wings of the German glider pioneer, Otto Lilienthal, who
his own wave and circulation conceptual theories.
had fatally crashed in 1896 after about a thousand brief flights
in beautiful, spindly, bat-winged hang gliders. Kutta’s math
used a ‘circulation’ term to map out the flow over his ‘wing.’ Centrifuging of pressures? An early idea that fell
Kutta’s math, with minimal translation to physical reality, by the wayside
was equally suited to describe waveform or that mystery, When air rises past a wing’s leading edge, its inertia
circulation ‘around’ a wing, though he had neither concept!32 33 would keep it going straight. It would break away, leaving a
In 1906, Nikolai Joukowski independently derived the similar, vacuum below it. That low-pressure area, in nineteenth century
immaculate and simple formula for circulation lift, but for a parlance, was called, ‘dead water.’ This doesn’t happen, except
flying paddlewheel device.34 Figures 635 and 7.36 in a stall. Air has internal pressure, a force that causes it to
Jouikowski’s elegant and deceptively simple form of the expand down toward the wing’s upper surface. That expansion
circulation-lift mathematics would become the basis of applied is both a bending of the flow and a drop in pressure. It is
aerodynamics. Joukowski’s equation: entirely the internal pressure of air that forces it down toward
the surface, making ‘attachment’ of flows. This downward,
L = ρΓV
pressure-gradient force is in a curving pattern, and so is a
Where L = lift ‘centripetal’ force. The equal and opposite force is an inertial
ρ = density (rho) force in a curving pattern, centrifugal force.
Γ = circulation, a complex term
This curvilinear motion of the air particles gives
V = freestream velocity, or velocity of the flying device
rise to a definite centrifugal force with which the particles
through air
below the surface press against the latter, whilst those
Like the Bernoulli equation, Jowkowski’s equation says above exert a suction effect so that both produce a
what must be, without explaining why, or the particular forces lifting effect.40 — Otto Lilienthal, Birdflight as the Basis of
involved. Those forces are pressure times wing surface area, Aviation, 1889
and (Newton and Stokes) opposite pressure gradient forces on
In 1889, Otto Lilienthal drew a sketch of a wing, without
air.
that mystery, upwash, and attributed its lift to ‘centrifuging.’ As
In 1910 Kutta acknowledged that the concept of wing we’ve seen, Lanchester used the concept, at least before he
circulation was from Lanchester.37 read Lamb. Figure 8.41
Starting in 1911, published in 1918 - 1919, Ludwig If you stir your coffee, so it develops a whirlpool, the fluid
Prandtl, using Herman von Helmholtz’s vortex theory, built his will pile up against your cup’s rim, just as air piles up against
theoretical mathematical wing theory. It stood on the shoulders the underside of a wing in its curve from upwash to downwash.
of the intuitions of Lanchester, somewhat poorly acknowledged Your coffee centrifuges away from the center of the curve,

Fexternal = ma = -Finertial
Centripetal Force(external) = ma = -Centrifugal Force(inertial)
Centrifuging of pressure differences is often the best
causal, conceptual explanation for what happens around
a wing. So why hasn’t it been a predominant concept in
aerodynamics? It was historically computationally too complex
for easy engineering. Only by integrating the whole velocity field
around a wing can pressures from centrifuging be calculated.
That could be done now, with modern computer models, but
other approaches have taken precedence.
Conversely, Bernoulli’s equation, with its predictive
simplicity, dominated applied aerodynamics. Again, Bernoulli’s
equation just says that along a streamline, usually there is an
exchange of pressure energy for velocity (kinetic) energy.
Figure 8: Lilienthal’s 1889 diagram of centrifugal lift However: In a 1999, online paper, “The Physics of Flight
- Revisited” two physicists, Weltner and Ingelman-Sudberg,
derived Bernoulli’s equation for curving flows.42 Centrifuging is
thus a valid underlying explanation for the Bernoulli prediction
of the low-pressure atop Lanchester’s spinning sphere or atop
a wing.
lowering pressures there, as above a wing. The profile of the Trap: Bernoulli is a result, a bottom line, not a cause
whirlpool is a fairly good map of the pressures of a circulatory or explanation of anything. The explanations are within
flow. Wings are merely gas centrifuges. its derivations, of which there are three: Conservation of
The centrifuging of low pressures has not been a momentum, conservation of energy, and centripetal forces, or
central idea in modern aerodynamics. Some physicists even centrifuging.
call centrifugal force ‘the fictitious force,’ or, ‘colloquial.’ But
centrifugal force is the inertial force, the resistance of mass to Lanchester’s 1894 wave theory
acceleration, in a curving pattern, by a centripetal force. Inertia
To read Lanchester’s Aerodynamics is like looking into
is a moderately well established property of matter, called
a giant kaleidoscope. Gems are hidden within voluminous
mass. Mass, in the physics of motion, is inertia, the resistance
prolixity and innovative approaches, even in the following
to acceleration by an external force. M = F/a
synopsis. Hang on.
Following is a form of Newton’s second and third laws,
Lanchester, in 1892 or so, drew a sketch of the flows
that force equals mass times acceleration; the minus sign
upward around the edges of a vertically sinking, flat plate. He
indicating the equal and opposite force.)
called the flows a ‘vortex fringe.’43 His diagram is functionally
May 2012 17
identical to an 1867 diagram by William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, frictionless (inviscid) fluid. He reasoned that, at velocities less
that we’ll call a ‘sinking vortex.’ See Figure 9.44 than the speed of sound, as such wings also moved forward,
Figure 9: Kelvin’s diagram (in black) of a traveling vortex this symmetrical acceleration field would persist. (That is
(sinking, here), illustrating Lanchester’s vortex sink flows. It basically true. Compare his ‘acceleration fields’ with the
is functionally similar to the previous sketch by Lanchester. pressure gradient forces in Figure 11.)
Picture a smoke ring travelling downwards. The middle sinks, As the aeroplane approached a lower, stationary particle
forced down by the weight of the passing plane. The great of air, the air particle would be accelerated up and forward,
mass of slow, downward-moving air in the center is balanced below the wing. Since the acceleration field was symmetrical,
by more rapid, upward motion around wingtips, and slower, its velocities would be precisely reversed as the aeroplane
upward motion further out, so air doesn’t ‘accumulate’ passed. The air particle would be left in its ‘initial state,’ at rest,
(Lanchester’s word) below. All subsonic airplanes fly in sinking keeping no motion energy. The energy of motions created by
air. Thus all airplanes sink. All airplanes angle upwards to the acceleration field would stick with the wing.
maintain level flight. Lanchester left it up to the reader to figure a similar
Paradox: A wing always encounters rising air, the pattern of upwash, backward acceleration, and symmetrical
upwash of the wave, so where’s the sink? The wave itself sinks, reversal of accelerations above the wing, though that is where
surrounded by the upwash of Kelvin-Lanchester sinking vortex. exchanges in the forms of energy, as pressure gradients and
If you drop a stone, it forms this sort of vortex, and sinks velocities, and as energy recoveries, are most concentrated.
rapidly. An airplane would sink like a rock if it weren’t zipping Figure 12.46
forward. A small plane’s wing passes an air molecule in a few He wrote:
hundredths of a second — not enough time for vortex sink to
…the motion imparted to the fluid is eventually given up
gain much velocity. Thus airplanes sink slowly.
by the fluid both in respect of its vertical and horizontal
Forward speed means a plane accelerates a tremendous components, and consequently there is no continual
volume of air per second, slowly, in the sinking vortex transmission of energy to the fluid, and no work requires
pattern, to create the pressures of lift. Energy use is inversely to be done to maintain the motion or to support the
proportional to velocity squared, so accelerating this large plane.47
mass of air slowy is much more efficient than swirling a small
The system of flow…may be classified as a conservative
amount of air rapidly.
system, the energy of the fluid motion being carried
Lanchester drew pictures of the symmetrical along and conserved just as is the case in wave
‘acceleration fields’ that make such upward flows.’45 In modern motion. The motion round about the plane may thus be
terms, Lanchester’s ‘acceleration fields’ are the forces on air by considered as a supporting wave.48
pressure gradients. See Figure 10.
It is this assertion of wave (motion) energy conservation
He then considered wings of infinite span — both that makes Lanchester’s theory invaluable. It explains part of
infinitesimally loaded, flat plate, ‘aeroplanes,’ and lightly loaded, how subsonic wings can be so incredibly efficient.
under-curved ‘aerofoils’ — sinking in an incompressible,

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Lord Kelvin’s 1867 diagram of a travelling (sinking, here) vortex (black), with airplane superimposed, is functionally similar to the previous sketch
by Lanchester. Picture a smoke ring travelling downwards. The middle sinks, forced down by the weight of the passing plane. The great mass of
slow, downward-moving air in the center is balanced by more rapid, upward motion around wingtips, and slower, upward motion further out, so
air doesn’t ‘accumulate’ (Lanchester‘s word) below. All subsonic airplanes fly in sinking air. Thus all airplanes sink. All airplanes angle upwards to
maintain level flight.
Paradox: A wing always encounters rising air, the upwash of the wave, so where’s the sink? The wave itself sinks, surrounded by the upwash of
Kelvin-Lanchester sinking vortex.
If you drop a stone, it forms this sort of vortex, and sinks rapidly. An airplane would sink like a rock if it weren’t zipping forward. A small plane’s
wing passes an air molecule in a few hundredths of a second--not enough time for vortex sink to gain much velocity. Thus airplanes sink slowly.
Forward speed means a plane accelerates a tremendous volume of air per second, slowly, in the sinking vortex pattern, to create the pressures of
lift. Energy use is inversely proportional to velocity squared, so accelerating this large mass of air slowy is much more efficient than swirling a
small amount of air rapidly.
Lord Kelvin’s 1867 diagram of a travelling (sinking, here) vortex (black), with airplane superimposed, is functionally similar to the previous sketch
by Lanchester. Picture a smoke ring travelling downwards. The middle sinks, forced down by the weight of the passing plane. The great mass of
slow, downward-moving air in the center is balanced by more rapid, upward motion around wingtips, and slower, upward motion further out, so
Figure 9: Kelvin’sairdiagram (in black)
doesn’t ‘accumulate’ of a traveling
(Lanchester‘s word) below. vortex (sinking,
All subsonic airplanes flyhere), illustrating
in sinking Lanchester’s
air. Thus all airplanes vortex
sink. All airplanes angle sink flows.
upwards to © 2011 Philip Randolph
maintain level flight.
Paradox: A wing always encounters rising air, the upwash of the wave, so where’s the sink? The wave itself sinks, surrounded by the upwash of
Kelvin-Lanchester sinking vortex.
May 2012 If you drop a stone, it forms this sort of vortex, and sinks rapidly. An airplane would sink like a rock if it weren’t zipping forward. A small plane’s 19
wing passes an air molecule in a few hundredths of a second--not enough time for vortex sink to gain much velocity. Thus airplanes sink slowly.
Forward speed means a plane accelerates a tremendous volume of air per second, slowly, in the sinking vortex pattern, to create the pressures of
Cp
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
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locity
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Figure 11: Lanchester figured his ‘acceleration fields’ would persist

even as his flat plate ‘flew’ forward and down, approximately true. A
reproduction of Lanchester’s early diagram of a gliding, flat plate and
‘acceleration fields (black) is superimposed on a pressure ‘isoline’ plot
around a modern airfoil. Lowest pressures are in cool colors, highest
pressures in warm colors. Pressure gradient forces are at right angles to
pressure ‘isolines,’ lines of constant pressure. Lanchester’s diagram is
qualitatively accurate. It also shows the forces that create upwash ahead
and slow downwash aft.
Figure 10: The equivalence of Lanchester’s ‘acceleration fields’ and pressue
gradient forces. Lanchester’s early diagram (in black) of a vertically sinking, flat plate.
Superimposed are pressures (not to scale). Lanchester’s ‘acceleration field’ arrows
show the pressure gradient forces from highest pressures below (red) to lowest
pressures above (blue), that slow the plate’s sink.
Lanchester asserted that the acceleration fields would persist, even if the flat plate
‘wing’ were flying, or gliding — in this picture, moving to the left, as well as sinking.
The symmetry was, of course, an idealization. But Lanchester’s idea was correct.
Compare this figure with the following pressure plot around a modern airfoil.

Velocities of air ‘particles’ in relation to Lanchester’s flat-plate wing moving to left and sinking
Figure 12: The path of a particle over a wing, through Lanchester showed “the energy of the fluid motion being
symmetrical ‘acceleration fields,’ showing wave ‘motion energy’ carried along and conserved just as is the case in wave motion.”
conservation. © 2011 Philip Randolph
Lanchester’s third diagram (in black) of the symmetrical acceleration fields around a sinking, infinitely long, flat-plate wing. (His first such sketches,
The path of air through Lanchester’s ‘acceleration fields’ also
probably from around 1892, are similar but less aesthetic.) In modern terms, these ‘acceleration fields’ represent the direction of pressure gradients
Lanchester’s thirdthe
resulting from diagram (in black)
vertical sink of plate.
of the flat the symmetrical explains
The acceleration fields persist why
as the wing there
also movesis to
upwash
the left. ahead of wings.how
We are watching Paths
air is shown are
acceleration
disturbedfields
as thearound a sinking,
wing approaches andinfinitely long, flat-plate
passes. Lanchester for illustration,
asserted that a particle andthe
of air (red) that are notwill
wing realistic for a
pass above flat-plate
is first pushedwing.
forwardSince
wing. and
(Hisupfirst such
by the sketches,
acceleration probably
field, and thenfrom around
is pushed down1892, are till itactual
and slowed, again haspaths would be
zero velocity. distorted
Air (blue) by wing
that the turbulence
will pass at leading
below is and
similarsucked
but less aesthetic.)
up and backwards, and then pushed down and slowed, till it again has trailing edges,No
zero velocity. Lanchester
motion energythen required
is left behind. anThusarc shaped wing, to
Lanchester
showed “the energy of the fluid motion being carried along and conserved conform tocase
just as is the theincurve of air. ”
wave motion.
In modern terms, these ‘acceleration fields’ represent the
direction of pressure
The path gradients
of air through resulting
Lanchester’s from the
‘acceleration vertical
fields’ sink why there
also explains In our modern
is upwash understanding,
ahead of wings. Paths lower
shown air
are is
fordisplaced forward
illustration, and are
of thenot
flatrealistic
plate.for
The acceleration fields persist as the wing also less than upper air is displaced back, so circulation
a flat-plate wing. Since actual paths would be distorted by turbulence at leading and trailing edges, Lanchester then required an velocities
movesarctoshaped
the left. We
wing, to are watching
conform how of
to the curve airair.is disturbed as the (orange) are lower beneath the wing. Lanchester’s concept of
wing approaches and passes. circulation came later, published in1907, but with the circulatory
In our modern understanding, lower air is displaced forward less than uppercomponent inaccurately
air is displaced described
back, so circulation as(orange)
velocities symmetrical.
are lower
Lanchester asserted that a particle of air (red) that the wing will
beneath the wing. Lanchester’s concept of circulation came later, published in1907, but with the circulatory component inaccurately described as
pass above is first pushed forward and up by the acceleration
symmetrical. Lanchester used the same diagrams (in which the observer
field, and then is pushed down and slowed, till it again has must imagine the wing travelling away, into the page) to show
zero velocity.
Lanchester Air (blue)
used that diagrams
the same the wing(inwill pass
which thebelow is must
observer sucked how
imagine the the
wing acceleration
travelling fields
away, into resulting
the page) to show from
how‘sink’ create wingtip
the acceleration
up and backwards, and then pushed down and slowed, till it
fields resulting from ‘sink’ create wingtip vortices. vortices.
again has zero velocity. No motion energy is left behind. Thus © 2011 Philip Randolph
May 2012 21
What Lanchester left out, or only implied, was that and thus allow perfect, symmetrical lift. His requirement of
pressures (or acceleration fields) also largely recover near the avoiding discontinuities was qualitatively equivalent to Wilhelm
trailing edge. We’ll see that Lanchester’s argument is equivalent Kutta’s 1902 requirement of tangential flows at leading and
to the more standard, centuries old concept of ‘pressure energy trailing edges, now called the ‘Kutta condition.’ Lanchester
recovery’ around streamlined objects. The more complete suggested that the flexibility of bird feathers achieves this in
reality is energy form recovery, where pressure and momentum nature.49
energies vary and restore inversely, till near the trailing edge of Then Lanchester considered finite wings. As they moved
a wing each is approximately restored. forward while slowly sinking (a glide), he asserted that the same,
As we’ll see, the wing doesn’t carry much total energy surrounding, upward acceleration field (pressure gradient) that
along with it. Above the wing, which is where most of the action makes a wave-shaped flow over a wing also makes flows up
is, there is a pressure gradient from ambient pressures ahead around wingtips, creating his now familiar wingtip and trailing
to centrifugally lowered pressures above to ambient pressures vortices. Only energy lost to wingtip vortices need be replaced.
aft. The pressure gradient temporarily speeds flows along See Figure 14.50
streamlines, increasing motion energy. Pressure energy gets Thus in the case of a loaded aerofoil of finite
used up temporarily increasing ‘motion energy’ till collisions lateral extent, there is a continual loss of energy
with slower air aft again restore pressure and slow flows. The occurring, and a source of power is consequently
total energy of any bit of air stays roughly constant as it whips necessary to maintain the aerofoil in horizontal flight.
along an upper streamline. So energy isn’t carried along by the
wing, mostly. See Figure 13. For Lanchester, ‘upwash’ ahead of a wing was both
fact and enigma. He summarized an earlier argument, that
What is actually carried along is a pattern of exchanges lift is both from slowing upwash momentums and then from
between pressure energy and motion energy, in which low accelerating that air downwards.
pressure energy and high velocity energy above the wing, and
slightly raised pressures below, make the pressure imbalance The immediate function performed by the sectional form
between the wing’s upper and lower surfaces — lift. of the aerofoil is to receive a current of air in upward
motion and impart to it a downward velocity…51
Lanchester had started his forward-moving-and-sinking
(gliding) wing argument with a flat plate wing of infinitesimal The benefits of ‘high aspect ratio’ wings were originally
weight, as a greater weight would make a greater acceleration recognized by Francis Wenheim, inventor of the first (1871)
field and greater curvature of flows. The curving flows would wind tunnel. They were later quantitatively studied by by
make ‘surfaces of discontinuity’ as they broke over the edges the Smithsonian’s Professor Langley, and later yet tried by
of the flat plate. He therefore suggested that with small but Horatio Phillips in his ‘venetian blind’ flying machine attempt.
finite weight, the plate would need to be curved, to match the Lanchester referenced Langley in his assertion that longer
curve of flows, with greater curve needed to support greater wings of “great lateral extent” have lower losses (essentially, to
weight. Hence his ‘supporting wave’ diagram. See Figure 1. He wingtip vortices):
asserted that there is a balance between velocity, weight, and … approaching more and more nearly to the
wing curvature (camber) that would avoid such ‘discontinuities,’ ideal case in which the conservation is complete, and

Total energy along upper and lower streamlines
is best observed from the perspective of how a passing wing disturbs previously still air.
Energy remains constant along upper streamlines. Pressure is used up accelerating flows (backwards).
Raised velocity energy
Upper streamline kinetic energy (mv2/2)

Energy along Estimate only
upper streamlines Estimate only
Upper streamline pressure energy Pressure plot
is constant
(proportional to pressure)
Lowered pressure energy
Circulation
velocities
not to scale
Lower streamline total energy (dotted orange)

Estimate only
Kinetic energy (peach) Estimate only
Lower pressure energy (red) Raised pressure and velocity energy Pressure plot
Raised
Figure energy
13: Total is carried
energy along
along upper beneathisthe
streamlines wing in the lower,
constant. pressure
This is typical & momentumwaves,
of raised-pressure ridgewhich,
wave.like Along tsunamis,
lower
Energy streamlines,
along pressure
lower streamlines and by
is raised velocity are simultaneously
a standing, raised carryraised. Thisenergy.
raised total is typical of raised-pressure
© 2011 Philip Randolph, waves, 10° e393
pressure
which,wave.
likeRaised energy
tsunamis, is carried
carry raisedalong energy.the wing streamline and CP plots by S. Allmaras
totalbeneath
in the lower, pressure and momentum ridge wave. Along lower
streamlines, pressure and velocity are simultaneously raised. 10° e393 streamline and CP plots by S. Allmaras
May 2012 23
Near wingtips, the upper pressure gradient and downwash energy recycling are weakened, making less
wave upwash ahead. Lanchester’s acceleration field, the result of the plane’s sink, is in gray, and makes the
wingtip vortices.
Lanchester’s concept of wingtip vortices as the sum of ‘vortex filaments’ (lower half of his illus-
Figure 14: A wave intration)
the direction of flight, a vortex in the Prandtl quite brilliantly mathematized this concept as his
dimension of sink. Near wingtips, the upper pressure gradient ‘lifting line’ theory, published in 1918 - 1919. In it, he adds the
and downwash energy Prandtl quite brilliantly
recycling mathematized
are weakened, making thisless
concept as his ‘lifting line’shaped
horseshoe theory, published in infinitesmal
vortices of 1918-1919. Insections
it, he of wingspan
adds the horseshoe shaped vortices of
wave upwash ahead. Lanchester’s acceleration field, the result infinitesmal sections of wingspan to get the bound-vortex circulation
to get the bound-vortex circulation of the entire wing, rendering
of the entire wing, rendering the first method of predicting the lift
the first and drag
method of of a proposed
predicting wing.
the lift and drag of a proposed
of the plane’s sink, is in gray, and makes the wingtip vortices.
Lanchester’s concept of wingtip vortices as the sum of ‘vortex wing. © 2011 Philip Randolph
filaments’ (lower half of his illustration)

the plane reaps the benefit of the whole up-current A wing doesn’t carry much total energy. It carries
generated.52 – Lanchester, 1907 a pattern of exchange between energy forms, that
Thus Lanchester clearly implied the role of upwash as makes lift
the vehicle of his wave energy ‘conservation.’ But he struggled
Sometimes to be technically correct makes for difficult
to define the mechanism for what he knew to be true. We’ll see
language. Lanchester stated that “the energy of the fluid motion
the causes of upwash.
[is] carried along and conserved.” That’s true, but it’s half of
Even amidst the flurry of his own, mostly adequate the total energy picture. The energy of pressure gradients is
answers, he still worried at an inexplicit, flawed question, also carried along with the wing. But pressure energy drops
paraphrased, ‘What holds up “the wave on the crest of which by increasing kinetic (motion) energy, so a wing mostly just
the aerofoil rides?”’ Lanchester speculated about elastic changes the form of energy within surrounding airflows, from
collisions with air reaching all the way to the earth, then pressure to velocity, and back. A wing (with exceptions) mostly
bouncing back to impact the wing, perhaps via ‘prismatic doesn’t add to the energy of the air that flows over it. See
columns.’ He failed at an analogy between a wing and “a Figure 14.
loaded piston supported by gaseous pressure in a closed
In fact, a wing carries very little total energy — almost
cylinder,”53 a pneumatic concept which can be made to work,
none above, where we find the most powerful pressure
although that’s another story.
gradients and changes in flow velocity, plus a minor amount
Somehow, perhaps lost in verbal haze, he missed his below (in a raised-pressure, standing wave, discussed later).
own answer: The wave isn’t held up. It sinks, in his and Kelvin’s This can be shown with a bicycle example, by Bernoulli’s
sinking vortex pattern. But it sinks slowly, for, exactly as he equation, or by a pressure analysis.
asserted, it loses only limited energy to trailing vortices. Even a
• The bicyclist: A bit of air rising in upwash, passing over
powered plane is always sinking, slightly ‘down’ the vector sum
a wing, and exiting downward, is much like a bicyclist coasting
of thrust and gravity (again, Lanchester’s concept).54To achieve
through a tight turn. The energy the cyclist carries into the turn
level flight, it angles up, compensating for the sinking mush
is all there is. He exits with the energy he started with, minus
downwards that produces the upward flows of wingtip vortices.
a tiny loss to friction. We’ll extend our analogy by putting a dip
See Figures 10 and 17.
in the curve. As our cyclist loses altitude during the first part
So, Lanchester: He was like an artist unsuccessful at of the curve, he gains speed. His energy remains constant, a
selling realism, so then pursuing vogue. Throughout, he threw Bernoulli exchange of his elevation loss times his weight, for a
concepts around like Jackson Pollack with paint, assembled momentum energy gain (mg∆h + m∆V2/2 = 0). In the upslope
them into something only slightly more coherent than a of the curve, the form of energy recovers, to nearly his original
staircase descending a nude, but trailed bits of string, that he elevation and velocity. Just so, over a wing, pressure drops
or we might find our way through his minotaur labyrinth. Rather as velocity increases, and then pressure increases as velocity
than completing a coherent, convincing picture, he got lost in drops. The energy of the flow over the wing stays constant, but
his own tangles, of magnificent contributions. the form changes temporarily. (This was a written statement of
the Bernoulli equation.)
May 2012 25
• Bernoulli’s equation, in its aero usage, simply says forms include lowered pressure energy above the wing and
that along streamlines, often there is an exchange of pressure slightly raised pressures below is the benefit: lift.
energy for kinetic (motion) energy. One of its forms, for
Pressure energy recovery of streamlined
flows around wings, is: ρV2/2 + p = constant. The first term
is momentum in terms of density, ρ, rho. The p is pressure. objects at lifting angle of attack
Again, it just says that when pressure goes up, velocity goes All wings are distortions of minimum drag profiles,
down. The units of the ‘constant’ are energy per volume. Thus teardrop shapes, which exhibit pressure energy recovery. The
it asserts that when pressure energy goes up, velocity energy fact of pressure energy recovery around wings is observed:
goes down. Caution: Bernoulli’s equation is often misapplied. Away from wingtips, near the trailing edge of a wing, both upper
• Pressures: Since pressures forces on wing surfaces and lower flows return, as Lanchester theorized, to nearly their
are normal (at right angles) to the surfaces, they exert no original states (pressures and velocities), plus a relatively small
tangential forces on the wing. Hence there are no equal and downward and foreward velocity.
opposite pressure forces by the wing on flows tangential to The concept of pressure energy recovery in flows
wing surfaces. The wing, ignoring skin friction, doesn’t directly around streamlined objects dates to the Benjamin Robins.
speed or slow flows along streamlines. The wing adds no In 1742, Robins theorized that air displaced by a subsonic
energy to streamline flows. cannonball ‘circulates to the hindermost,’ preventing a vacuum
How pressure gradients along streamlines do develop: from forming there. The discovery of minimum drag, tear-drop
The curve of flows over a wing, from upwash to downwash, shapes came later — Lanchester observed the low drag shape
centrifuges the lowest pressures approximately above the of trout, and in 1907 diagrammed a wing with such a profile, a
thickest part of the wing. That creates a double pressure decade before the Fokker D.7 biplanes showed the superiority
gradient, from ambient ahead to lowered pressures above, to of thick wings over thin.55 John D. Anderson, Jr., in A History
roughly ambient near the wing’s trailing edge. The pressure of Aerodynamics, explains that in 1912 - 1913 Prandtl’s wind
gradient first accelerates and then slows flows. (This is tunnel tests of Lanchester’s airfoil designs showed a lift/drag
Lanchester’s somewhat symmetrical, ‘acceleration field.’) The ratio of 17, 10% better than other airfoils previously tested.56 (If
added velocity over the wing increases centrifuging, for even a reader knows the influence on German WWI airfoils, please
lower pressures and higher velocities. respond.)
One excellent author has asserted that the rotational Around minimum-drag objects aligned with flow (for
momentum energy of ‘circulation’ is carried along with the wing. example, symmetrical wings moving at zero angle-of-attack),
That’s true enough, though associated with those awkward pressures are slightly raised at the leading edge, lowered to
‘circulation’ visualizations, but again, he’s only talking about half the sides, and increase to roughly ambient by the trailing edge.
the energy picture. Even the raised kinetic energy of ‘bound Pressures aft nearly balance those pushing back on forward
vortex,’ ‘circulation’ is balanced by the lowered pressure energy surfaces, making very low drag.
of its low-pressure core, that sits atop the wing. The wing, with We can describe the low pressures to the sides of
a minor exception or two, doesn’t carry energy. It carries a such objects as centrifuged, low-pressure, trough waves. In
pattern of exchanges between energy forms. That these energy relation to the object, they are ‘standing waves.’ As a bit of air

passes along a streamline, from high pressures ahead to low they operate at a positive angle of attack. This has implications
pressures, pressure is used up increasing its speed. Passing — they create ‘net downwash,’ and drag air forward. If we
the thick point, it plows into slower moving air aft, again raising visualize a flat-plate wing operating at a positive angle of attack,
pressures that slow it. The low-pressure, high-velocity, upper pressure forces, always normal to its surfaces, are tilted slightly,
wave stays with the wing. so below (pushing) and above the wing (‘sucking’) there is a
Wings, however, are minimum-drag shapes distorted by component of pressure force forward. The same, on average,
camber, with an upper and a lower surface, and usually fly at a is true for actual wings. This is the drag, on wing and air, in
positive angle of attack. Lanchester astutely divided his wave standard lift/drag vector diagrams. It contributes to wingtip
analysis into upper and lower flows. If he had talked about both vortex drag. It also pushes air and pressures forward under the
forms of energy recovery, ‘motion’ energy and ‘acceleration wing, the source of added energy there.
field’ (pressure gradient) recovery, his analysis would show that
the raised pressure, standing wave below a wing also exhibits Two sources of upwash. Energy form recovery,
wave energy-form recovery — as a wing approaches and and recycling of energy below the wing
passes a previously still bit of air, the air is accelerated forward Pressure and motion recoveries happen above and
and up as it increases in pressue, and then is slowed and below the back part of a wing. A minor recycling of energy from
pushed down as its internal pressure decreases. downwash aft into upwash ahead happens below the wing.
When a streamlined object is not aligned with flows, as A false notion was actually published a few years ago,
long as the flows remain attached, the resulting waves around an assertion that the wing pulls upwash up (false), which must
it, whether low-pressure, trough waves or raised-pressure pull the wing down (false), so upwash must not add to lift (false
waves (or a mix), show pressure-motion energy-form recovery.5 again). The wing itself does not pull upwash up. Simple proof:
Waves add, and interact. The strong backwards There is no upward pressure gradient between a wing and
acceleration above a lifting wing combined with the weak upwash that would pull upwash up. Just the opposite — all
acceleration of air below make the pattern we know as pressures on a wing push or pull it up, and air down. As Ergo
‘circulation.’ The interaction of the upper and lower waves the Greek wrestler said, Ergo sumo clouto. Upwash has other
makes the whole wing wave. causes.
The strongest force creating upwash is the pressure
An exception, incomplete pressure and motion gradient from ambient ahead up toward the low pressure above
energy recovery a wing. (See Figure 12.) In conjunction with usually somewhat
Since real wings lose energy to wingtip vortices, they raised pressures below a wing, a broad pressure gradient forms
sink in relation to their ‘zero-lift’ angle of attack. They are up around its leading edge, Lanchester’s ‘acceleration field.’
always ‘mushing’ downwards from perfection. To stay level, The same difference in pressures that lifts a wing also lifts
5 For those familiar with lift/drag polar diagrams, the upwash ahead, and creates wingtip vortex flows.
‘minimum drag buckets’ represent angles of attack where As with lift, the strongest wing-wave pressure and
there is good attachment. Drag increases rapidly with bubble motion energy recoveries are above the wing, though starting
formation, till stall.
May 2012 27
Mom wash
m
entu
Force
Pre re
n
Upwash
ssu
Dow
Escape
Pressure
Velocity
Force
Relatively weak inertial resistance
to Downwash, by the air mass below
The strong force on upwash: The Downwash energy recov- The minor, lower squeeze:
centrifuged, low-pressure wave ery: The lower surface of Pressures are ‘squeezed’
above the wing has a stronger the wing and sheet down- forward between sheet
effect on upwash than pressures wash ‘sweep’ pressures downwash and the air mass
below. Upwash is pushed up by forward below the wing, to below, much like a cherry
the pressure gradient around the escape as upwash. Down- pit squirts forward when
front of the wing, from somewhat wash is slowed, its energy squeezed between thumb
elevated pressures below toward partly recoverd as the pres- and forefinger. At altitude
significantly lowered pressures sures forcing a small part of the squeeze is weak,. The
above. The wing slices into rising upwash. forces on upwash are
air, putting the forward ‘stagnation mostly from centrifuged
point’ below the leading edge. The low pressures above the
pressure gradient drags air wing. In ground effect, the
forward, up and around the lead- squeeze of pressures and
ing edge. air forward, between sheet
downwash and runway, is
strong.
Figure 15A: Upwash, ground effect, lower energy recycling. © 2011 Philip Randolph

h
m
nwas
entu
t
Shee
Dow
Mom
Higher pressures,
stronger sweep forward
Huge mass of runway provides strong inertial resistance to downwash
In ground effect, sheet downwash and air pushed down by the lower surface of the wing is
rapidly decelerated by the huge mass of the runway, resulting in elevated pressures. Equiva-
lently, between sheet downwash, the wing, and the runway, air is more strongly squeezed
forward than at altitude, and escapes as stronger upwash, making greater velocities above the
wing, for stronger centrifuging of low pressures there. The wing seems to ‘float.’
Figure 15B: Upwash, ground effect, lower energy recycling. © 2011 Philip Randolph
roughly aft of its thickest point. Just aft of where ambient wing is strongly ‘swept’ forward, relative to surrounding air.
pressures are most strongly lowered and ambient velocities The increased upwash allows lift at a lower angle of attack,
are most strongly increased is where we find the reverse, the for lower drag. That’s ground effect. At quite low angles
strongest energy-form recoveries. of attack, at elevation, air below a wing may be displaced
A lesser part of wing-wave energy recycling, that weakly backwards. At altitude, at significant angles of attack,
Lanchester didn’t explain, is the salvage of part of the energy downwash behind the wing hits air below, which has a lower
of ‘net downwash’ into part of upwash. If a wing’s trailing edge density than runways, but the sweeping collision still results
scrapes along the ground, air beneath it is squeezed forward in pressures being squeezed forward. See Figure 15.57These
at the speed of the plane. Close to the ground, air under a pressures strengthen the pressure gradient up around the
May 2012 29
leading edge, adding to upwash, and recycling the energy of recapitulate Newton’s generally false theory of flight, in which
sheet downwash, which otherwise might be lost. molecules hitting the underside of a wing don’t interact to
One author briefly asserted that energy from downwash make pressure. Newton’s typical, ‘if this were the unlikely case’
bounces off air below, making upwash. That’s true, if vague, but hypothesizing turns out to be accurate for supersonic flight, or
it’s the small potatoes of the story. When you think of how air flight in rarified atmosphere, where molecules seldom collide,
is accelerated up, ahead of a wing, think mainly of a pressure as on Mars.
gradient from mildly raised below, up and around the leading Lanchester’s diagrams show that for a subsonic plane
edge, to strongly lowered pressures above. to stay up, it has to move his whole acceleration field, in a
One other possible source of energy recovery is beyond double vortex pattern. Again see Figure 14. The pressures a
the scope of this article, but: Behind long, lightly loaded wing creates to move air in this vortex are also the pressures
wings, sheet downwash may turn back up, or even oscillate, that lift a wing. The equal and opposite reaction of creating
forming an additional crest or two. (Otto Lilienthal diagramed the sinking vortex is lift. Thus the sinking vortex is also a lifting
this in 1889!58) Some of this motion ends up as turbulence and vortex. Basically, air something for the wing to push on, which,
ultimately heat, or turbulence at the molecular level. But there via inertia, pushes back.
is also a well-studied phenomenon, wave-group interaction, Viewed from ahead, the upward displacement outboard
by which energy from trailing oscillations transfers forwards, of wingtips becomes energy lost to the trailing vortex system.
leaving relative calm. You can watch this phenomenon in a boat The magic is that even though some displaced air pushes up
wake. Perhaps. around wingtips, air ahead of the wing also gets pulled and
To the extent that pressure and motion energies are displaced up, as upwash, while the reverse pressure gradients
recovered or recycled, they reduce energy loss and increase aft slow and calm sheet downwash.
flight efficiency. Some pressures and motions are always lost. The result is Lanchester’s wing wave, with its curve of
The cost of flight is pressure and motion energy that is not upwash ahead to downwash aft.
salvaged, mostly in wingtip vortices and skin friction, that a Oddly, Lanchester didn’t repeat his argument, from his
plane leaves as its wake. analysis of the lift of spinning spheres, that this curving flow
centrifuges the pressure differences around the wing that
The Lifting vortex make lift. Note that this same centrifuging creates the pressure
A wing stays up by putting downward pressure forces on gradient above the wing that bends air over the wing down, in
air — as Lanchester said, reversing upwash ahead to somewhat modern terms keeping it ‘attached,’ at angles of attack less
greater downwash aft. The difference is ‘net downwash.’ than stall.
A wing doesn’t stay up merely by throwing ‘net
downwash’ air down, like a rocket. That common notion ignores Energy efficiency. How the wing wave lowers drag.
the pressures that result from air pushed down pushing other All flight is within sink.
air up. It is these pressures that help create the weaker, lower An airplane is more efficient to the extent that it has less
part of the wing wave, and it is within the wave’s pressures energy losses per some performance target — miles covered,
and flows that a wing flies. To ignore these pressures is to

cargo hauled, lift/drag or speed sink ratios at specific speeds, wing’s tips. Less gets ‘sucked’ and squeezed forward into the
absolute sink rate. Wing wave energy recovery and energy upwash ahead that creates part of lift. So our short wing must
recycling reduce energy losses and so increase efficiency. operate at a higher angle of attack, and must create its lift with
Ignoring skin friction, there are several ways that long wings are stronger net downwash. That strong downwash aft adds oomph
more efficient than shorter wings, bearing the same weight. to the rotational velocity of wingtip vortices. The sheer between
It’s basic physics that lift from accelerating a large mass the faster downwash and upflows outboard of a stubby wing’s
of air gently uses less energy than achieving the same lift from tips centrifuges stronger low-pressure center of the trailing
accelerating a smaller air mass rapidly. A wing makes pressures vortices. That low-pressure center ‘sucks’ air forward from
that move Lanchester’s whole acceleration field, a cross- further back, and pulls back on the wingtip, for very strong
section of air with greater span than the wing, and great depth. vortex drag.
The longer the wing, the greater the span of the acceleration Vortex drag is proportional to span-loading — not to
field. Longer, faster wings affect a greater volume of air per aspect ratio or wing area.
second more gently than shorter, slower wings, for more A wing always flies in sinking air of its own creation.
efficient flight (ignoring skin friction, and with planes of equal As with lift and energy recovery, the main cause is the low
weight). pressures above the wing. While ahead of a wing, pressures
But that’s a third of the story. Second: To the extent that force upwash, above a wing the forces on air are downwards.
the wing wave recovers and recycles its two energy forms, Even ahead of a wing, upwash doesn’t go up forever, but
rather than leaking their energy into wingtip vortices, efficiency is overcome by the pressure gradient down toward the low
is increased. Recovery and recycling mean less energy ends pressures above the wing. The average motion of air above a
up in the plane’s wake. Another way to say this is that the ‘up- finite wing is downward — a statement equivalent to the fact
currents generated’ ahead of the wing make lift, while ‘up- of net downwash. Below a wing, slightly raised pressures also
currents’ around wingtips are losses. As Lanchester explained, push air downwards. That is the vortex sink (sinking air), inboard
long, lightly span-loaded wings have better recovery and of wingtips, in which a plane always flies.
recycling of energy, more beneficial upwash, and less losses to To overcome the sink of air in which it flies, a wing angles
wingtip vortices, than short, stubby wings. up, from its ‘zero-lift angle of attack,’ the path it would take
The third energy efficiency is from wing-wave, vortex if gravity disappeared. Figure 1659 shows how that important
drag reduction. Vortex drag is from the low-pressure cores part of the wing wave, upwash, reduces losses to downwash
of the trailing vortices pulling trailing air forward, and also and increases flight efficiency. Upwash is stronger away from
‘sucking’ back on wingtips — the opposite of pressure energy wingtips, where the wing wave suffers.
recovery. For the same weight of airplane, a longer wing has The rest of this article is mainly to support the fact of
less losses to wingtip vortices, and lower vortex drag, than a the wing wave, with five wave analyses, and a few hints at the
stubby wing. mechanisms of wing-wave energy recovery.
Vortex drag reduction detail: For a given load, longer
wings have better wave energy recovery than shorter wings.
Comparatively, air leaks up more strongly around our shorter
May 2012 31
in zero gravity, it’s ‘zero-lift line.’ Gravity makes it sink from that path to
level flight, strongly displacing air up around wingtips, in a violent sinking
vortex pattern. No real subsonic wing has zero wave-energy recovery, but
because of losses up around wingtips, short, heavily span-loaded wings
have weak upwash and poor wave-energy recovery.
How upwash increases flight efficiency
ic
Drag
rodynam
k
rtex sin
Force
rate
Lift
Forc namic
Drag
Zero
Total Ae
sink
g ravit Zero gravit
Low vo
y fligh y flight path
dy
e
t pat
Lift
Low downwash
ß
rtex
Aero
h
h vo
Flight path
l
Tota
velocity
Hig
High downwash
Flight path
velocity
Lanchester’s diagram rotated to represent strong upwash and wave
energy recovery. (Lanchester did make a similar diagram.) Rotating his
Lanchester’s diagram (black) of the then prevailing fiction, that a wing hits diagram keeps the curve of flows the same, so the total aerodynamc force
a horizontal airflow. He showed such fictitious, ‘wave-upwash-free’ wings is the same, but angled more vertically, showing the lower drag. Lower
would have about half the lift of real wings. Force vectors show that for downwash velocity means less energy lost to trailing vortices. Downwash
similar lift, they’d fly at a higher angle of attack, angling their total aerody- energy aft not recovered is waste. The greater downwash velocities sheer
namic force backwards, for high drag. The high velocity downwash aft is with up-currents outboard of wingtips, making stronger rotation of trail-
wasted energy, and resolves into violent trailing vortices, making high ing vortices, and stronger centrifuging of their low-pressure cores, which
wingtip vortex drag. The dotted blue line is the path the wing would take drag back on wingtips.
in zero gravity, it’s ‘zero-lift line.’ Gravity makes it sink from that path to Upwash, vesus the fictitious lack of upwash, creates similar lift is at a lower
level flight, strongly displacing air up around wingtips, in a violent sinking angle of attack. The vortex sink rate is lower. Vortex sink is from spill of air
vortex pattern. No real subsonic wing has zero wave-energy recovery, but up around wingtips. Long, lightly span-loaded wings always have efficien-
because of losses up around wingtips, short, heavily span-loaded wings cies both from good wave energy recovery and from influencing a larger
have weak upwash and poor wave-energy recovery. (wider) volume of air per second than short wings.
ic
Drag
rodynam
k
rtex sin
Force
Figure 16: How wave energy recovery increases flight efficiency. © 2011 Philip Randolph
Lift
Total Ae
Zero gravit
Low vo
y flight path
The wing wave as similar to other waves, with surface waves are supported by an 1886 discovery,
Low downwash
includingFlight
earthquake
path waves(!) and more of surface waves within air, and by the conceptual side of
the mathematical aerodynamics term, ‘similitude,’ or ‘flow-
velocity
The wing wave can be understood, and validated, similarity.’

through a few comparisons — with surface water waves,
earthquake wave crests, the waves five-ton ‘flyboats’ once Your author’s first exposure to serious aerodynamics
rode onLanchester’s
Scottishdiagram
canals, standing
rotated waves,
to represent strong as over
upwash andsubmerged
wave
was on a trip to Eastern Washington, in March of 2001, to fly
rocks and depressions in creeks, and linear pressure waves.
energy recovery. (Lanchester did make a similar diagram.) Rotating his a four-foot flying wing in a slope combat. On the trip from
diagram keeps the curve of flows the same, so the total aerodynamc force
Lanchester’s ‘wave, motion-energy conservation’ is Lower
equivalent Seattle, Adam Weston, who has a degree in aerodynamics,
is the same, but angled more vertically, showing the lower drag.
to the modern
downwashterm,velocity‘pressure-energy
means less energy lost torecovery.’ Comparisons
trailing vortices. Downwash attempted to explain Reynolds numbers, basically a numeric
energy aft not recovered is waste. The greater downwash velocities sheer
with up-currents outboard of wingtips, making stronger rotation of trail-
ing vortices, and stronger centrifuging of their low-pressure cores, which
32 drag back on wingtips. R/C Soaring Digest
Upwash, vesus the fictitious lack of upwash, creates similar lift is at a lower
ratio of inertial to viscous forces. (Speed times fluid density Wing waves as similar to water and earthquake
times chord length, divided by viscosity.) I didn’t quite get it, surface waves. Surface waves within air?
so he told me to go read a book. The Reynolds number is the
The downward ‘restorative force’ of the crest of a water
‘flow similarity,’ or ‘similitude’ number, for similar shapes. For
surface wave is weight, which reverses upward cresting to
example, if a model wing, ‘flown’ at slow speeds in water (with
down-rush aft. A similarly-downward ‘restorative force’ operates
a density much greater than air) has a Reynolds number similar
above a wing. It’s the downward pressure gradient that bends
to that of its similarly shaped, full scale wing, their flows will be
air down around a wing’s curved upper surface, reversing
similar in pattern, attachment, bubble formation, turbulence,
upwash ahead to downwash aft. It’s not a perfect comparison.
and coefficients of lift and drag. The Reynolds number is
The motion in a water-wave crest is forwards, while air above a
thus the computational basis for comparing models in wind
passing wing is accelerated backwards. Figure 17.60
tunnels to full-scale flight. But that’s a hint at the math side
of aerodynamics, which doesn’t always get well balanced by But surprisingly, there is a surface wave crest with forces
simple statements of concept. and motions in a remarkably similar pattern to those of the wing
wave — the crest of ‘Rayleigh solid surface waves,’ typical of
Watching waves in front of the beach cabin I rent, in
earthquakes, or the waves across a sheet of Jell-O when you
2004, I realized I didn’t quite get water waves, other than the
tap it with a spoon. Each has a forward moving crest, in which
standard measures of frequency, velocity, and amplitude. But
particles move backwards. Just as an earthquake ‘P’ wave
I’d been thinking about flows and forces around wings for
passes, rock and dirt in its crest move in the opposite direction
a few years. I saw gravity reversing the upwash in front of a
of its travel, while the earth further below moves weakly
wave to downwash aft, and figured that the force that drives a
forward.6 Similarly, as a wing passes, previously undisturbed
wave forward is the push down on its aft half. I saw that push
air above is accelerated backwards, while air below is usually
forward is a bit like squeezing a cherry pit between thumb
displaced weakly forward. Neither air nor dirt does tension,
and forefinger, till it fires. That’s only part of the reality, but I
but they fake it, in the same way that differences in pressures
immediately pictured the similar pattern of downward pressure-
will ‘suck’ soda up a straw. It’s another case of similar force
gradient forces on air above a wing. I saw the wing wave as
patterns making similar flows. The sum of forces above a wing
very much like a water surface wave. Again, that’s not entirely
and in the crest of a solid surface wave act like tension, pulling
accurate, but it allowed a very basic, qualitative form of the
particles backward in a pattern that sticks with the forward
conditions of flow similarity, or in aero vernacular, ‘similitude: ’
moving crest.
Similar patterns of dissimilar forces result in similar flows. This
allowed comparisons between the wing wave and other waves That air and rock could make similar wave crests is
— earthquake crests (!), standing waves over rocks in creeks, counterintuitive. Air can swirl and shear, while rock merely
a pair of pressure waves, and a solitary wave that carried canal distorts. But away from wingtips, airflows over and under a long
boats in the 1830s. Each reaffirms the fact of the wing wave. wing don’t swirl — they mostly deform, like a solid. A major
difference is that distorted solids, up to a point, have restorative
6 A good animation of Rayleigh solid surface waves, and
a few other waves, is at: <http://paws.kettering.edu/~drussell/
Demos/waves/wavemotion.html>
May 2012 33
In
Flow Similarity: Similar patterns of dissimilar Pressures reverse upwash to downwash
forces make similar flows The pressure gradient from

ambient well above a wing to low
pressure at its upper surface is in a
e similar pattern to the weight of
o rc water in a crest. Air is displaced
F more strongly backwards above a
Dough and a rolling pin. wing than forward below.
Downward force squeezes
n
pressures forward, making ensio
T
‘upwash.’ Similarly, a wing’s angled
underside and sheet downwash Pre
‘sweep’ pressures forward to ssure
increase upwash.
Earthquake (or Jell-O) wave crests Te n s i o n

and wing wave crests have similar
internal patterns of motion. The
Weight slows and reverses sum of forces in a wing wave make
the upward cresting the air above it act like it is under
The weight of water in the tension. Unlike solids in an
Downwash
backside of a wave exerts a similar earthquake or Jell-O wave, wing
pressure to the rolling pin. wave air is permanently displaced. Wave Travel
Downwash slams into the inertia
of the water below, making
pressures that accelerate water
ahead, where it piles up, moving Pressure Thrust
the crest forward.
rce
Weight
In ‘positive’ forced solitary waves,
t Fo
water is permanently displaced
Inertia
forward. That is similar to the wave
Ne
action below a wing.
Lift
Pressures reverse upwash to downwash Drag
The pressure gradient from © 2011 Philip Randolph
ambient well above a wing to low
pressure at its upper surface is in a
Figure 17:pattern
similar Flowtosimilarity:
the weight ofDissimilar forces in similar patterns make similar wave motions. © 2011 Philip Randolph
water in a crest. Air is displaced
more strongly backwards above a
wing than forward below.

forces that return them to their original shapes, while air is free And! It is entirely within generally accepted aerodynamic
to remain displaced, with forces mainly from plowing into other principles to picture the upper and lower waves as separated by
air. So away from their crests, the force patterns on air and rock a solid surface, such as our streambeds.
are very different. Air is also very much more compressible than Because, by definition, a fluid element will not
rock, which transmits pressure waves mainly by distortion. But cross over a streamline, then any streamline can be
in their wave crests, they act very similar! selected and interpreted as a solid boundary without
Please surf again to Dr. Dan Russell’s site. Note this in any way changing the picture of the flow.66 – David
the similarity of motion in his Rayleigh, solid surface wave Bloor, The Enigma of the Aerofoil
animation, to the motions within the wing wave. And see Figure The flow over a wing forms a standing wave a bit unlike
18. what one might find over a rock in a shallow creek bed. Note
Lanchester’s wing-wave theory, and comparisons of that in such waves, if smooth, the velocity, pressure, and
surface waves to the wing wave, imply waves within air! But elevation of flows change and then revert, to approximately their
how can there be surface waves around a wing within air? original state.
In 1886, the great German vortex and wave theorist, Our upper wing wave is more like the flow over a deeply
Herman Von Helmholtz, while hiking in the Alps, observed submerged rock. It’s a forced, lowered-pressure, raised-
huge waves on the surface of a cloud layer. By 1889 he had aftward-momentum, standing wave. Within it, pressure energy
related waves between sheering layers of atmosphere to waves is used up accelerating flows, becoming motion energy, and
between wind and sea.61 Kelvin had also derived equations then is recovered as flows pile into higher pressures aft and
for waves resulting from the sheer of wind over water.62 Lord are slowed. A standard interpretation of the Bernoulli exchange
Rayleigh reconciled the theories.63 A web search under the of pressure for velocity thus holds: In pressure trough waves,
reversed eponym, ‘Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities,’ will get you pressure drops as velocity rises.
many images. One such photo is Figure 19.64 So yes, surface A dual, standing-wave approach also resolves an old
waves within air. However: Bernoulli quandary: From a wind tunnel perspective, the
Bernoulli exchange appears to hold beneath a wing, since as
As standing waves. A Bernoulli resolution: The pressures initially increase, flows are temporarily slowed. But
tsunami energy of the lower wave the wind tunnel perspective hides the actuality. As the lower
It’s slightly more accurate to describe the wing wave as wave passes over a previously still bit of air, it first accelerates
the sum of upper and lower standing waves, typical of flows it forward and then slows it (as Lanchester asserted), while
over bumps and depressions in a solid surface, as in a creek pressures rise and then drop. By the trailing edge, original
bed. See Figure 20.65 pressure and calmness, (plus minor downward momentum) are
approximately restored. That its velocity and pressure increase
These are pressure-inertia waves, as they perpetuate
simultaneously (and then decrease simultaneously) indicates
through exchange of pressure and momentum energies. Such
that the lower wave carries raised total energy — forward
waves show pressure and motion energy recovery.
motion plus raised pressure. That’s typical of raised-pressure
waves.
May 2012 35
Similar patterns of dissimilar forces make similar flows, even in earthquake and wing wave crests
Similar Motions: Wave motions within earthquake crests Similar Force Patterns: Near the surface, rock is stretched
are surprisingly similar to wave flows around wings, along wave lines, tensions making restorative forces
though because of displacement and downwash, wing (larger green arrows) similar in pattern to the pressure
air is disturbed in partial ellipses. Earthquake particles forces above a wing. Below the surface, a pressure wave
move in complete ellipses. As an earthquake moves rock distorts rock up to a crest, making tensions that pull the
back and forth, near the surface, troughs carry forward crest back down. The sum of the tensions are illustrated
motion, while crests carry rearward motion, in a forward in dark blue, a pattern of restorative forces remarkably
moving wave pattern. Deeper down the motions are similar to those above a wing.
reversed, as beneath a wing.
Figure 18: Similar patterns of dissimilar forces make similar flows, even in earthquake and wing wave crests. © 2011 Philip Randolph

Figure 19: Kelvin-Helmholtz instability wave formation on a cloud surface, from shear between two layers of air. Photo by Cesca.
May 2012 37
Airfoil Flows As Standing Waves
A standing wave over rock in shallow creek is not like flows over a wing--Flows have an escape
route, up, limited only by gravity. Flows slow and thicken as they trade velocity for elevation. (Not
to scale.)
Figure 20A: Standing waves over airfoil shapes in a streambed. © 2011 Philip Randolph
The Bernoulli exchanges below the wing, for those who as tsunamis, which carry energy as simultaneously raised
worry about such things, is still between the forward velocities elevation and velocities. Tsunamis convincingly carry energy.
of the lower wave, which drop as they create the pressures Erg sum transportus.
that then impart velocity to air ahead. Thus the lower wave Waves add. The two standing waves sum to the entire
perpetuates forward. However, it all takes place within a pile-up wing wave. Since the upper wave temporarily speeds air back,
of air that is raised pressure and a forward shove on previously and since the lower wave weakly speeds air forward, the sum is
still air. The process is reversed in the aft half of a wave, where the instantaneous pattern of motion called circulation.
air’s forward speed is slowed as pressures drop. See Figure 12.
The Gerstner principle, the inseparability of circulation
An example may help show that some waves do indeed and waves with motion in two dimensions, even applies to
carry raised total energy, rather than just an exchange of energy upper and lower flows, taken separately. See the displacement
forms. The lower wing wave, carrying raised pressures and patterns in Figure 21. But the upper and lower wing waves,
velocities, is very similar to raised, solitary water waves, such taken separately, can also be looked at as linear (one

A standing wave over airfoil-shaped rock in deep creek (or over a hill) is like the flow of air over a
A standing wave over rock in shallow creek is not like flows over a wing--Flows have an escape
route,
A up, limited
standing only rock
wave over by gravity. Flowscreek
in shallow slowisand
notthicken as they
like flows over trade velocity for
a wing--Flows haveelevation.
an escape(Not
to scale.)
route, up, limited only by gravity. Flows slow and thicken as they trade velocity for elevation. (Not
to scale.)
A standing wave over airfoil-shaped rock in deep creek (or over a hill) is like the flow of air over a
wing--The
A standingmass
waveof fluid
over above blocksrock
airfoil-shaped the in
trade
deepof creek
velocity
(orfor
overelevation
a hill) is above
like thethe distant
flow of airsurface.
over a
Flows centrifuge
wing--The mass ofupper,
fluid low
above pressures (inner
blocks the pressure
trade isolines),
of velocity that briefly
for elevation accelerate
above and narrow
the distant surface.
flows--a trade of pressure for velocity aft. Original pressures and velocities are restored
Flows centrifuge upper, low pressures (inner pressure isolines), that briefly accelerate and narrow near the
trailing edge.
flows--a tradeItofmakes no difference
pressure for velocitytoaft.
flows that upwash
Original pressures andanddownwash
velocities ‘zero’ streamlines
are restored near are
the
the boundary
trailing edge. Itbetween
makes no rock and water,
difference ratherthat
to flows than withinand
upwash air or water. Aerofoil
downwash ‘zero’Fish has his nose
streamlines are
in lower pressure than his tail, reducing pressure drag, perhaps even gaining thrust.
the boundary between rock and water, rather than within air or water. Aerofoil Fish has his nose Trout prob-
ably fightpressure
in lower as muchthan
overhis
such
tail,energy saving
reducing locations
pressure drag,asperhaps
for food. Salmon
even gainingprobably
thrust.take advan-
Trout prob-
tage fight
ably of pressure
as much graidents
over such to energy
migratesaving
upstream. Lanchester
locations studied
as for food. the low-drag
Salmon probablyprofiles of trout.
take advan-
tage of pressure graidents to migrate upstream. Lanchester studied the low-drag profiles of trout.
Figure 20B: Standing waves over airfoil shapes in a streambed. © 2011 Philip Randolph
May 2012 39
The flow of air under a wing is like a standing wave in a creek-bed dip shaped like the underside
of an inverted airfoil, with its upwash (ahead) and downwash (behind). Flows centrifuge slightly
higher pressures, especially under the leading edge. Where flows apprach higher pressures, they
thicken and slow. On the aft side of the higher pressures, the pressure gradient accelerates flows
backwards, till pressure and velocity are restored. Flip the picture for flight orientation.
Aerofoil fish deux has her tail in higher pressures than her head, and may be taking advantage of
lowered boundary-layer flow velocities close to the streambed surface.
(Pressure isolines and flow plot, Clark Y airfoil, 5° aoa, by S. Almaras)
Figure 20C: Standing waves over airfoil shapes in a streambed. © 2011 Philip Randolph

dimensional) pressure waves along streamlines. Separately, Both raised and lowered pressure waves display wave
they’re almost like pressure waves travelling through pipes — energy-form recovery — they travel great distances leaking little
streamlines are sometimes called streamtubes. to net-downwash velocities aft. Near wingtips, such recovery
fails, with resulting loss, as Lanchester described, to wingtip
As a pair of linear pressure waves vortices.
We’ve discussed how the upper and lower waves are
centrifugally forced, and ‘standing’ in relation to the wing. John Scott Russell’s forced solitary waves, and
Here we can forget causes, and compare the upper and lower 1830’s ‘flyboats’
waves to linear, or ‘longtitudinal,’ pressure waves, operating Considered in the light of wave motion, the
along streamlines. This is a reinterpretation of Lanchester’s peripteroid system must be regarded as a forced
wave theory, in which, for his ‘acceleration, field of force,’ we wave, the aerofoil supplying a force acting from without
substitute pressure waves. — Lanchester68 7
The lower wing wave can be described as a fairly linear, Roughly equivalent to standing waves over deeply
raised-pressure wave, operating along streamlines. It’s like a submerged rocks or depressions are the forced versions of
line of pool balls spaced slightly apart. When the aftmost is two solitary waveforms discovered by an English Engineer,
hit, a wave of collisions travels forward. As the wave passes, it John Scott Russell, in the 1830s. Standing waves are a wind-
leaves the balls in its wake relatively still. It carries positive total tunnel perspective, while Russell watched as waves forced by
energy — raised pressures of collision and increased velocities. boats passed him. To Russell’s credit are the first descriptions
The upper wing wave is a pressure trough wave. of wave lift, which he applied to boats, but unfortunately not to
It’s similar to the sound wave emanating when a speaker wings.
magnet pulls its paper cone backward — a forward travelling, Russell first investigated what Lord Kelvin much later
backward displacement of air molecules, which pulls your would call, “the discovery… by a horse.”69 Around 1830, the
eardrum outwards. It is much like pulling suddenly on one equine experimenter invented the modern planing (significant
end of stretched Slinky®, making a forward moving pattern of pun) hull, and created an industry. The horse, while pulling a
backward displacements. The pattern of energy exchanges usually slow canal boat owned by a Mr. Houston, panicked and
stays with the wave. The backward momentum of a bit of bolted. Russell wrote:
the Slinky® spring creates a tension ahead of it that then
…it was then observed, to Mr. Houston’s
slows it. The tension gets spring further ahead moving back,
astonishment, that the foaming stern surge which used
continuously transferring the tension further ahead. See Figure
to devastate the banks had ceased, and the vessel was
21. The forces in a pressure-trough wave are similar. The
carried on through water comparatively smooth with a
pressure gradient along streamlines, from ambient pressures
resistance very greatly diminished.70
ahead toward the low pressure above the wing, speeds air.
Low pressures in the back half of the wave pull forward on
aft-rushing air within the wave, slowing it, leaving relative calm
7 Lanchester likely read of Russell’s solitary waves in
behind. See Figure 22.67
Lamb, 418 - 421, and perhaps from other sources.
May 2012 41
Displacements and temporary velocities
Wave direction
Region A. Acceleration Region B. Deceleration
A tensile wave in a slinky is a forward moving pattern of backward displacements, just as over a wing. The
momentum of the portion of the spring moving backwards creates the tensions which starts forward
portions of spring moving backwards, in region -A-. The same tensions decelerate the backwards move-
ment in region -B-. Thus the wave moves forward, losing little energy. Similar forces operate above a
wing, herded or forced, and reinforced, by centrifuging.
Figure 21A (above) and 21B (opposite page): A ‘Slinky®’ A compression wave moves forwards with forward
shows how a tension wave moves forwards with backwards displacement, of Slinky coils or air beneath a wing.
displacements, as does air above a wing. Wave direction © 2011 Philip Randolph

Region A. Acceleration Region B. Deceleration
A tensile wave in a slinky is a forward moving pattern of backward displacements, just as over a wing. The
momentum of the portion of the spring moving backwards creates the tensions which starts forward
portions of spring moving backwards, in region -A-. The same tensions decelerate the backwards move-
ment in region -B-. Thus the wave moves forward, losing little energy. Similar forces operate above a
wing, herded or forced, and reinforced, by centrifuging.
Within streamlines, as a wing passess, particles of air are perma-
nently displaced in partial horseshoe shapes, backwards above,
forward below. Compare with the previous, ‘Slinky’ displace-
ments. The temporary velocities of air particles so disturbed and
displaced are ‘circulation.’
© 2011 Philip Randolph Wave direction
A compression wave in a slinky is a forward moving pattern of forward displacements, just as under a
wing. Both upper, pressure-trough waves and lower, compression waves show pressure energy recovery.
May 2012 43
Upper Streamline Pressure Trough Wave
7U
6U
5U
4U
3U
1.0
2U
1U 0.5
Scales, Coefficients of Pressure

0U 0.0
-0.5
7U -1.0
6U -1.5
5U
-2.0
4U
3U
1.0
2U
1U 0.5
0L 0U&L 0.0
1L 1L
2L 2L
3L 3L
4L 4L
5L 5L
6L 6L
Streamlines © 2011 Philip Randolph
Lower Streamline Pressure Ridge Wave e393 plots by S. Allmaras
Figure 22: Upper and lower pressure waves along streamlines. wing, though leaking a little to wingtip vortices. The pressure
Energy in springs is stored either by compression or stretch. gradient down toward the low pressures above the wing bends
Waves along a spring are an exchange of momentum for flows down, and keeps flows ‘attached’ to the wing. The equal
tension or compression. It’s the same for pressure gradients and opposite force, the difference between low-pressures
— raised or lowered, they store energy, that around a wing is above the wing and slightly raised pressures below, is lift.
temporarily exchanged for velocity of air, kinetic energy. Such © 2011 Philip Randolph, e393 plot by S. Allmaras
energy patterns are ‘carried along’ in constant relation to the

Figure 23: Russell’s 1839 sketches of a canal boat towed at speeds less than and greater than the speed of its solitary wave.
Through the 1830s, till railroads took over, sixty-foot, Russell applied his ‘solitary wave’ observations to
five-ton, horse-drawn ‘flyboats’ operated on a couple Scottish flyboats. When the boat equaled or exceeded the speed of the
canals, at dazzling speeds of eight to thirteen miles per hour. solitary wave it forced, it would rise up, lifted by its wave, and
In 183471, Russell was puzzling over the ‘diminished bow and stern waves would diminish. See Figure 23.72
resistance’ of such a horse-towed canal boat, when it suddenly The wing equivalent of the flyboats’ diminished wake
stopped, presumably grounded. (And this could be considered and lowered ‘resistance’ (lowered drag) is the smooth sheet-
as the second demonstration by a horse.) A ‘great, solitary downwash behind wings (away from wingtips), and the
wave’ continued. Russell followed it on horseback for more surprisingly low energy use of many airplanes. For boats
than a mile, during which it diminished little. He later discovered or wings, it’s all indication of wave energy recovery, or, in
that such waves may be ‘positive’ (raised) or ‘negative’ (trough) Lanchester’s terms, a ‘conservative system.’
waves. Russell’s solitary waveforms are now called, ‘solitons,’ Russell also called his solitary waves, ‘waves of
and provide a theoretical basis for lasers, some acoustics, tidal translation.’ By ‘translation,’ Russell meant that water in the
and tsunami analysis, and here, for Lanchester’s wing-wave. wave was permanently displaced, forward in his ‘positive’ wave,
and backwards in his ‘negative’ (trough) wave. Russell was
May 2012 45
contrasting his solitary wave displacement with the
complete circular motions within von Gerstner’s
repetitive waves.
The ‘flyboats’ lifted and rode on ‘forced,’
‘positive waves of translation.’73 They rode on a
pressure ridge, a forward moving pattern of forward
displacements. That’s very similar to what happens
below a wing, at significant angles of attack.
The wave above a wing is Russell’s
‘negative wave of translation.’ It’s also a forced,
low-pressure-trough wave. As in our earlier
Lowered Pressure
Slinky® analogy, it’s a forward moving pattern
of backward displacements. Its forced form, on
water, is illustrated by how a buoy in a current, or
a displacement hull, will be sucked downward,
by centrifuged low pressures around their curved
undersides. The flows above a wing are in
precisely such a forward-moving wave pattern,
with backward displacements of previously still air,
though upside down from our buoy. See Figure 24.
The backward displacement of previously
still air above a passing wing, combined with the Lowered Pressure
forward displacement below, makes a pattern of
movement that sticks with the wing, even as its
component molecules are left behind, dubbed
‘circulation.’
Russell quantified how ‘resistance’ was lower As a displacement boat hull picks up speed, it centrifuges a lowered pressure beneath it and ‘lifts’
at shallower canal depths. Kelvin, speaking in 1891, Figure down
24: Airfoil
into waterboat. Displacement
in the same hulls
way a wing centrifuges andpressure
a lowered buoys liftit,downwards
above and lifts, up. The in the
negative lift on a hull (lowered pressures) is in balance with buoyancy and weight. The lift on a
said, “and the horse certainly found this…”74 Such same way wing isRussell’s
the difference‘negative solitary
between lowered pressures wave’
above andlowers pressure
less-changed pressues below.on a wing’s
Russell or horse analysis should establish ‘ground upper surface. As a displacement boat hull picks up speed, © 2011 Philip centrifuges
it Randolph
effect’ (lowered drag of wings close to the ground) a lowered pressure beneath it and ‘lifts’ down into water in the same way
as a forced, solitary wave phenomenon. a wing centrifuges a lowered pressure above it, and lifts, up. The negative
lift on a hull (lowered pressures) is in balance with buoyancy and weight.
Unfortunately, unlike floatplanes, Russell’s The lift on a wing is the difference between lowered pressures above and
concept of wave lift failed to make the difficult less-changed pressures below. © 2011 Philip Randolph

Above left: Frederick William Lanchester with his 1894 ‘aerodrome,’ plans
at left. Over 7' long with a 40" elliptical span, it had twin, self-feathering,
aluminum propellers powered by India rubber ‘elastics’ and a catapult launch.
It flew 133 yards in 4.5 seconds, ending in an elm tree.
Wing sections, as shown below left, were about 10% thick, flat-bottomed
with a sharp leading edge, and the thickest point about a third back from the
leading edge.
After 1905, Lanchester used lamina of mica, sometimes less than 1/1000",
for airfoil surface in flight-test models weighing between 1 grain (0.06 grams!)
and 12 grams. He called these later models ‘aerodones,’ a term which did
not stick, but gave a name to his second book, largely devoted to stability
issues, “Aerodonetics.”
The mica model ‘Fig. 151,’ above, weighed 0.24 grams.
The cedar model ‘Fig 152,’ above right, weighed 46.3 grams. Each had about
a 1/3 glide ratio.
May 2012 47
transition from water to air. That transition, into air, must rides in a similar manner to how 1830’s ‘flyboats’ once rode
be difficult, because here it is, well over a century after waves…’
Lanchester’s initial, 1894 presentation of his theory of wing- — Frederick William Lanchester, 1868 - 1946.
wave lift, which I hope will now fly.
Ergo sum Endnotes:

These multiple wave analyses should convincingly 1 Frederick William Lanchester, Aerodynamics: Constituting
establish the fact of the wing wave, most of the mechanisms the First Volume of a Complete Work on Aerial Flight, vol. 1 (A.
of its energy recovery, and how the wing wave contributes to Constable & co., ltd., 1907), 142, <http://books.google.com/
subsonic flight efficiency. But the fact of the wing wave is not books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&lr=>.
so much a conclusion as a starting point. What else does it do [This diagram is from 1894, as Lanchester explains: —
for understanding flight? And how? Some of the answers are PR.]
through Lanchester’s analysis that all airplanes are technically “The author gave a resume of his theory in a paper
gliders, knowing nothing of horizons or where forces come read at the annual meeting of the Birmingham Natural
from, but happily coasting ‘down’ the vector sum of thrust and History and Philosophical Society on June 19th, 1894, a wall
gravity.75 More answers are via Lanchester’s second, great, diagram of which Fig. 68 is a reproduction being exhibited.”
partially missed contribution, that airplanes fly within the sinking [Lanchester’s 1894 ‘supporting wave’ as a wall diagram from
vortex pattern of flows. That’s another article. his 1894 talk, 142] <http://books.google.com/books?id=yLc3
AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false>
In memorium 2 Olivier Darrigol, Worlds of Flow: A History of
Hydrodynamics from the Bernoullis to Prandtl (Oxford University
‘If the flow over a wing looks and acts somewhat like a Press, USA, 2005), 305 – 308.
water surface wave or earthquake wave crest, if it has a pattern
of restorative forces and motions similar to those of surface 3 Lanchester, Aerodynamics, 1: viii – ix, 142, 160 – 162.
waves, if it has the elliptical or partial elliptical internal motions “Chapter IV. Consists in most part of an investigation
and circulation velocities typical of surface waves, if it looks like on peripteral motion,2 dating from the year 1894 - 5 and
the standing wave over a rock in a creek, and if it also obeys offered to the Physical Society of London in the year 1897,
the rules of pressure waves, if it localizes and recovers energy but rejected.” [Lanchester, on his paper’s rejection. 1907, viii]
forms in standard wave exchanges of potential and kinetic <http://books.google.com/books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&prin
tsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false> [Lanchester, 1907,
energy (pressures and motions, and for some waves, crest
142] <http://books.google.com/books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&
elevation), so that it perpetuates and travels in the efficient pg=PA142#v=onepage&q&f=false>
manner of waves, if it moves faster than its medium, as do all
traveling waves, if, like many surface waves, it creates upwash [“The hydrodynamic interpretation…added
subsequently…” sections of Chapter IV start by pages 160 or
that then reverses to downwash, and if it focuses additional
162. — PR.]
recovered energy into that upwash, toward a crest that a wing
4 Frederick Winsor and Marian Parry (illustrator), The Space
Child’s Mother Goose, 1st ed. (Purple House Press, 2001).

5 “This is the Erudite Verbal Haze/Cloaking Constant K/That [Gerstner’s wave circle diagram as interpreted by
saved the Summary/Based on the Mummery/Hiding the Flaw/ Lamb, 1895, p. 414.] <http://books.google.com/books?id=d_
That lay in the Theory that Jack built.” AoAAAAYAAJ&dq=hydrodynamics%252C%20lamb&pg=PA414%
Lanchester, Aerodynamics, 1: 142. 23v=onepage&q=Gerstner&f=false#v=snippet&q=Gerstner&f=fal
6 Theodore von Kármán and Lee Edson, The Wind se>
and Beyond: Theodore Von Karman, Pioneer in Aviation and Gerstner’s original diagram is in: Abhandlung über die
Pathfinder in Space, First ed. (Little, Brown and Company, 1967), Theorie der Wellen, reproduced Darrigol p.72, interpreted in
60. Rouse-Ince, History of Hydraulics, 111.
7 Lanchester, Aerodynamics, 1: 156. 17 Hunter Rouse and Simon Ince, History of Hydraulics (Iowa
8 Darrigol, Worlds of Flow, 32. Institute of Hydraulic Research, State University of Iowa, 1957),
110 – 111.
9 Ibid., 308.
18 Daniel A, Ph.D Russell, “Longitudinal and Transverse
10 J. A. D. Ackroyd, “Lanchester’s Aerodynamics,” in Wave Motion,” February 12, 2012, <http://www.acs.psu.edu/
Lanchester Legacy: A Celebration of Genius: A Trilogy of drussell/Demos/waves/wavemotion.html>.
Lanchester Works, ed. John Fletcher (Coventry University, 1996),
61 – 98. [Dr. Russell’s animations of water and earthquake waves] <http://
www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Demos/waves/wavemotion.html>
11 John D. Anderson Jr., A History of Aerodynamics: And Its
Impact on Flying Machines (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 19 Lamb, Hydrodynamics, 412.
244 – 247. It appears therefore that the motion of the individual
12 John David Anderson, Fundamentals of Aerodynamics particles, in these progressive waves of permanent type
(McGraw-Hill, 1991), 366 – 368. is not purely oscillatory, and that there is on the whole
a slow but continued advance in the direction of wave
13 Darrigol, Worlds of Flow, 308. propagation.*… * Stokes l.c. ante, p. 409. Another very simple
14 Allmaras, S. (Plot), Asymmetric Circulation. E64 Airfoil proof of this statement has been given by Lord Kayleigh l.c.
Velocity Field Less Freestream Velocities, 2009. ante, p. 279.
15 Lanchester, Aerodynamics, 1: 157. A system of exact equations, expressing a possible
…the portion of the fluid transversing [the wing] will form of wave motion when the depth of the fluid is infinite,
be ultimately left with some residual downward momentum, was given so long ago as 1802 by Gerstner†, and at a
which must be equal to the total upward momentum received later period independently by Rankine. …† Professor of
by the regions [surrounding such downwash], for otherwise Mathematics at Prague, 1789 - 1823.
there would be a continual accumulation, or else attenuation, 20 Ibid.
of the field in the lower strata of the atmosphere, which is 21 S. Allmaras, E393 10° Streamline Plot, 2009.
impossible. Lanchester, Aerodynamics, 1: 157.
22 Isaac Newton, “A Letter of Mr. Isaac Newton, Professor
16 Sir Horace Lamb, Hydrodynamics, 2nd ed. (University of the Mathematicks in the University of Cambridge; Containing
press, 1895), 414, <http://books.google.com/books?id=d_AoAAA His New Theory About Light and Colors: Sent by the Author to
AYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=hydrodynamics,+lamb&ei=0qpu the Publisher from Cambridge, Febr. 6. 1671/72; In Order to Be
TcPGLobilATXusnnAQ&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false>.
May 2012 49
Communicated to the R. Society,” Philosophical Transactions 6, &q=tennis+balls#v=onepage&q&f=false>.
no. 69 – 80 (January 1, 1671): 5, <http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing. 29 David Bloor, The Enigma of the Aerofoil: Rival Theories in
org/content/6/69-80/3075.short>. Aerodynamics, 1909 - 1930 (University of Chicago Press, 2011),
[Newton’s letter on light, 1671] <http://rstl. 128 – 131.
royalsocietypublishing.org/content/6/69-80/3075.short> 30 Lanchester, Aerodynamics, 1: 42 – 43.
23 Benjamin Robins, New Principles of Gunnery: Containing [Lanchester’s spinning ball lift, 1907, 42 - 43] <http://
the Determination of the Force of Gun-powder, and an books.google.com/books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA42#v=
Investigation of the Difference in the Resisting Power of the Air twopage&q&f=false>
to Swift and Slow Motions, with Several Other Tracts on the
Improvement of Practical Gunnery (F. Wingrave, 1805), xxviii, 31 George Gabriel Stokes, “On the Friction of Fluids in
<http://books.google.com/books?id=3j8FAAAAMAAJ&lr=>. Motion and the Equilibrium and Motion of Elastic Solids [From the
Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Vol VIII, P.
[Dr. Wilson, ed., quotes Robins quoting Newton. xxviii] 287.] 1845,” in Mathematical and Physical Papers, George Gabriel
<http://books.google.com/books?id=3j8FAAAAMAAJ&pg=P Stokes and Baron Rayleigh John William Strutt, vol. I (University
A213#v=twopage&q&f=false> Press, 1880), 76, <http://books.google.com/books?id=_
24 Newton, “A Letter of Mr. Isaac Newton, Professor of YnvAAAAMAAJ>.
the Mathematicks in the University of Cambridge; Containing 32 Darrigol, Worlds of Flow, 311.
His New Theory About Light and Colors: Sent by the Author to
the Publisher from Cambridge, Febr. 6. 1671/72; In Order to Be “The remarkably simple formula L = ρΓV is now
Communicated to the R. Society.” called the Kutta-Joukowski theorem. However, Kutta did
not explicitly identify Γ with the circulation of the air around
25 Robins, New Principles of Gunnery, 213 – 214. the foil. Nor did he refer to Rayleigh›s tennis-ball problem as
26 Gustav Magnus, “On the Deviation of Projectiles; and the origin of formula (7.31) for the irrotational flow around a
on a Remarkable Phenomenon of Rotating Bodies, [From the circular cylinder…» - Darrigol
Memoirs of the Royal Academy, Berlin, 1852.],” in Scientific 33 Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, 248.
Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies
of Science, and from Foreign Journals. Natural Philosophy, vol. “Kutta’s equation was derived without recourse to the
1 (Taylor and Francis., 1853), 210, <http://books.google.com/ concept of circulation; indeed, at that time, he was not aware
books?id=C1i4AAAAIAAJ&lr=>. of Lanchester’s work. Kutta’s image of the flow over an airfoil
was that described in a more fundamental sense by the
Robins, who first attempted, in his ‘ Principles of governing flow equations (the Euler equations), rather than
Gunnery,’ to account for this deviation, thought that the the more abstract image of a synthesized flow combining
deflecting force was generated by the rotation of the uniform flow and circulatory flow…” - John D. Anderson
projectile; and at present this opinion is generally accepted.
[Magnus cites Robins, 210] 34 Ibid., 314.
27 Ibid., 218 – 219. “He [Joukowski] applied these notions to the rotating
blade and to the vortex pair behind a plate immersed
28 Baron John William Strutt Rayleigh, “On The Irregular perpendicularly in a uniform stream. He did not consider
Flight of a Tennis-Ball,” in Scientific Papers: 1869 - 1881, 1877, the case of an airfoil or wing, in which he may not yet have
344 – 346, <http://books.google.com/books?id=Gs4EAAAAYAAJ

understood that circulation-flow occurred.” – Anderson [Lanchester’s ‘vortex fringe’ and diagram, 1907, 145]
35 Wilhelm Kutta, “Auftriebskräfte in Strömenden <http://books.google.com/books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&vq=m
Flüssigkeiten.,” Illustrirte Aeronautische Mittheilungen 6 (1902): agnus&lr&pg=PA145#v=onepage&q&f=false>
133. [Lanchester’s diagram of upward momentum
36 Nikolai Joukowski, “De La Chute Dans L’air De Corps outboard of wingtips, 1907, 157] <http://books.google.com/
Légers De Forme Allongée, Animés D’un Movement Rotatoire’ books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&vq=magnus&lr&pg=PA157#v=on
(On the Fall Through Air of a Light Elongated Body Possessing epage&q&f=false>
Rotational Movement),” Bulletin De L’institut Aérodynamique De Lanchester’s acceleration fields up around a sinking
Koutchino 1 (1906). flat plate, here for wingtip vortices, but similar to his wave ac-
37 Darrigol, Worlds of Flow, 311. celeration field, 1907, 176] <http://books.google.com/books?i
d=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&vq=magnus&lr&pg=PA176#v=onepage&
Kutta ([1910] p. 3) credited Lanchester for the
107…
q&f=false>
concept of wing circulation. [Darrigol’s footnote includes date 46 Ibid., 1: 176.
in brackets - PR]
47 Ibid., 1: 155.
38 Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, 282 – 287.
48 Lanchester, Aerodynamics, 1: 155 – 156. [Lanchester on
39 Lamb, Hydrodynamics, 412 – 418. his wave conclusion] <http://books.google.com/books?id=yLc3A
40 Otto Lilienthal, Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation: a AAAMAAJ&pg=PA155#v=onepage&q&f=false>
Contribution Towards a System of Aviation, Compiled from the 49 Ibid.
Results of Numerous Experiments Made by O. and G. Lilienthal
(Markowski International Pub., 2001), 59. 50 Ibid., 1: 176. [Lanchester’s diagram of his ‘acceleration
field,’ and of wingtip vortices as the sum of vortex filaments, later
41 Otto Lilienthal, Der Vogelflug Als Grundlage Der mathematized by Prandtl] <http://books.google.com/books?id=y
Fliegekunst: Ein Beitrag Zur Systematik Der Flugtechnik Lc3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA176#v=onepage&q&f=false>
(R. Gaertner, 1889), 86, <http://books.google.com/
books?id=GWsaAAAAYAAJ&lr=>. [Lilienthal’s 1899 centrifugal 51 Ibid., 1: 158 – 159.
diagram] <http://books.google.com/books?id=GWsaAAAAYAAJ& [Lanchester on lift from upwash reversed to
pg=PA86#v=onepage&q&f=false> downwash, 1907, 158 - 159] <http://books.google.com/books
42 Klaus Weltner and Martin Ingelman-Sundberg, “Physics ?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&vq=magnus&lr&pg=PA158#v=twopage
of Flight - Revisited,” 2000, sec. 4, <http://user.uni-frankfurt>. &q&f=false>
de/~weltner/Flight/PHYSIC4.htm>. [Physics of Flight Reviewed] 52 Ibid., 1: 160.
<http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/service/404.html> [Lanchester on aspect ratio and conservation, 1907,
43 Darrigol, Worlds of Flow, 306. 160] <http://books.google.com/books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&v
44 William Thomson Kelvin, “Lord Kelvin | On Vortex Atoms,” q=magnus&lr&pg=PA160#v=onepage&q&f=false>
1867, <http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_vortex_atoms.html>. 53 Ibid., 1: 146 – 149.
[On Vortex Atoms, Kelvin] <http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/ When we consider part of the support of a body as
on_vortex_atoms.html> derived from an up-current, it is necessary to examine the
45 Lanchester, Aerodynamics, 1: 145, 152, 157, 176. origin of the up-current, for it is evident that the generation
May 2012 51
of such a current must give rise to a downward reaction, and 61 Darrigol, Worlds of Flow, 172 – 173, 178 – 179.
everything depends upon whether such reaction is borne 62 Ibid.
by the body itself or by the deeper layers of the air, and
eventually by the earth’s surface. [146] 63 Ibid., 190.
…Such a case is exemplified in the dynamical theory 64 Fran Cesca Oliva, Kelvin-Helmholtz, “Sunrise Waves”
of heat when a loaded piston is supported by gaseous Photo, Photo, n.d.
pressure in a closed cylinder. We could also suppose it to [10/25/2011 Permission for use by the photographer,
be effected by imbuing the supported body with sufficient Fraces Oliva, to be credited to ‘Cesca’ — PR]
intelligence and skill so to direct the particles that they would 65 Randolph, Philip (graphics), S. Allmaras (pressure plot,
always rebound within its reach. [147] e64 airfoil, 5°), Flow Similarity.
54 Ibid., 1: 146. 66 Bloor, The Enigma of the Aerofoil, 50.
It is evident that the problem as above presented [a 67 S. Allmaras, E393 10° Streamline and Pressure Plots,
sinking glider or aeroplane] is in effect identical with that of 2009.
an inclined plane moving horizontally — that is to say, the
relative direction of the horizon is not of importance. The 68 Randolph, Philip (graphics), S. Allmaras (pressure plot,
force of gravity in the one case [of a gliding plane] can be e64 airfoil, 5°), Flow Similarity.
substituted by the resultant of the force of gravity and an 69 Baron William Thomson Kelvin, “On Ship Waves. [Lecture
applied force of propulsion in the other [a powered plane]. Delivered at the Conversazione of the Institution of Mechanical
[PR brackets] Engineers in the Science and Art Museum, Edinburgh, on
55 Ibid., 1: 170. Wednesday Evening, 3re August, 1887.],” in Popular Lectures
and Addresses, Volume 3 (Macmillan and Co., 1891), 470 – 472,
[Lanchester’s 1907 thick wing, 170] <http://books. <http://books.google.com/books?id=SUMKAAAAIAAJ&lr=>.
google.com/books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA170#v=onep
age&q&f=false> I say his [Russell’s] discovery, but in reality the discovery
was made by a horse… [“I say his [Russell’s] discovery, but in
56 Anderson, A History of Aerodynamics, 246 – 247. reality the discovery was made by a horse...” - Kelvin, 1887, 470]
57 Randolph, Philip (graphics), S. Allmaras (e393 airfoil 10° <http://books.google.com/books?id=SUMKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA47
flow plot), Lower Air “Squeezed” Forward, 2009. 0#v=onepage&q&f=false>
58 Lilienthal, Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation, 56. [Kelvin in 1887, quoting Russell 1837 & 1840, 472] <http://books.
google.com/books?id=SUMKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA472#v=twopage
59 Lanchester, Aerodynamics, 1: 227, 230. &q&f=false>
[Lanchester’s ‘no-upwash’ diagram, 1907, 237] <http://books. 70 Ibid., 471 – 472.
google.com/books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&vq=magnus&lr&pg=P
A227#v=onepage&q&f=false> [Lanchester’s ‘upwash’ diagram, These experimental researches led to the Scottish
1907, 230] <http://books.google.com/books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ system of fly-boats carrying passengers on the Glasgow and
&vq=magnus&lr&pg=PA230#v=onepage&q&f=false> Ardrossan Canal, and between Edinburgh and Glasgow on
the Forth and Clyde Canal, at speeds of from eight to thirteen
60 Randolph, Philip (graphics), S. Allmaras (pressure plot, miles an hour, each boat drawn by a horse or pair of horses
e64 airfoil, 5°), Flow Similarity, 2011. galloping along the bank. The method originated from the ac-

cident of a spirited horse, whose duty it was to drag the boat Allmaras, S. E393 10° Streamline and Pressure Plots, 2009.
along at a slow walking speed, taking fright and running off, — . E393 10° Streamline Plot, 2009.
drawing the boat after him ‘and it was discovered that, when
the speed exceeded the velocity acquired by a body falling Allmaras, S. (Plot). Asymmetric Circulation. E64 Airfoil Velocity
through a height equal to half the depth of the canal (and the Field Less Freestream Velocities, 2009.
horse certainly found this), the resistance was less than at Anderson, John D., Jr. A History of Aerodynamics: And Its Impact
lower speeds.’ [Kelvin, 1887, 471] <http://books.google.com/ on Flying Machines. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
books?id=SUMKAAAAIAAJ&dq=Kelvin&lr=&pg=PA470#v=on Anderson, John David. Fundamentals of Aerodynamics.
epage&q&f=false> McGraw-Hill, 1991.
71 Darrigol, Worlds of Flow, 48 – 49. Bloor, David. The Enigma of the Aerofoil: Rival Theories in
72 John Scott Russell, “Experimental Researches into the Aerodynamics, 1909 - 1930. University of Chicago Press,
Laws of Certain Hydrodynamical Phenomena That Accompany 2011.
the Motion of Floating Bodies, and Have Not Previously Been Darrigol, Olivier. Worlds of Flow: A History of Hydrodynamics
Reduced into Conformity with the Known Laws of the Resistance from the Bernoullis to Prandtl. Oxford University Press,
of Fluids,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 14 USA, 2005.
(1839): 66 – 67.
Joukowski, Nikolai. “De La Chute Dans L’air De Corps Légers
73 Darrigol, Worlds of Flow, 54 – 55. De Forme Allongée, Animés D’un Movement Rotatoire’
[PR Note: Darrigol reproduces Russel’s chart, “System (On the Fall Through Air of a Light Elongated Body
of Water Waves,” including a “Positive” and “Negative,” “Wave Possessing Rotational Movement).” Bulletin De L’institut
of translation,” both “Free” and “Forced.”] Aérodynamique De Koutchino 1 (1906).
(i) Waves of translation. They involve mass transfer. Kármán, Theodore von, and Lee Edson. The Wind and Beyond:
Positive waves of this kind can be solitary. Negative ones are Theodore Von Karman, Pioneer in Aviation and Pathfinder
always accompanied by an undulating series of secondary in Space. First ed. Little, Brown and Company, 1967.
waves (see Fig. 2.13). – Darrigol Kelvin, Baron William Thomson. “On Ship Waves. [Lecture
74 Kelvin, “On Ship Waves. [Lecture Delivered at the Delivered at the Conversazione of the Institution of
Conversazione of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the Mechanical Engineers in the Science and Art Museum,
Science and Art Museum, Edinburgh, on Wednesday Evening, Edinburgh, on Wednesday Evening, 3re August,
3re August, 1887.],” 471. 1887.].” In Popular Lectures and Addresses, Volume 3.
See previous endnote quote. Macmillan and Co., 1891. <http://books.google.com/
books?id=SUMKAAAAIAAJ&lr=>.
75 Lanchester, Aerodynamics, 1: 146.
Kelvin, William Thomson. “Lord Kelvin | On Vortex Atoms,” 1867.
Bibliography: <http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_vortex_atoms.html>.
Ackroyd, J. A. D. “Lanchester’s Aerodynamics.” In Lanchester Kutta, Wilhelm. “Auftriebskräfte in Strömenden Flüssigkeiten.”
Legacy: A Celebration of Genius: A Trilogy of Lanchester Illustrirte Aeronautische Mittheilungen 6 (1902): 133 – 135.
Works, edited by John Fletcher, 61 – 98. Coventry Lamb, Sir Horace. Hydrodynamics. 2nd ed. University press,
University, 1996. 1895. <http://books.google.com/books?id=d_AoAAAAYA
May 2012 53
AJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=hydrodynamics,+lamb&ei=0q 1877. <http://books.google.com/books?id=Gs4EAAAA
puTcPGLobilATXusnnAQ&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false>. YAAJ&q=tennis+balls#v=onepage&q&f=false>.
Lanchester, Frederick William. Aerodynamics: Constituting the Robins, Benjamin. New Principles of Gunnery: Containing
First Volume of a Complete Work on Aerial Flight. Vol. 1. the Determination of the Force of Gun-powder, and
A. Constable & co., ltd., 1907. <http://books.google.com/ an Investigation of the Difference in the Resisting
books?id=yLc3AAAAMAAJ&lr=>. Power of the Air to Swift and Slow Motions, with
Lilienthal, Otto. Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation: a Contribution Several Other Tracts on the Improvement of Practical
Towards a System of Aviation, Compiled from the Results Gunnery. F. Wingrave, 1805. <http://books.google.
of Numerous Experiments Made by O. and G. Lilienthal. com/books?id=3j8FAAAAMAAJ&lr=>
Markowski International Pub., 2001. Rouse, Hunter, and Simon Ince. History of Hydraulics. Iowa
—. Der Vogelflug Als Grundlage Der Fliegekunst: Ein Beitrag Zur Institute of Hydraulic Research, State University of
Systematik Der Flugtechnik. R. Gaertner, 1889. <http:// Iowa, 1957.
books.google.com/books?id=GWsaAAAAYAAJ&lr=>. Russell, Daniel A, Ph.D. “Longitudinal and Transverse Wave
Magnus, Gustav. “On the Deviation of Projectiles; and on a Motion,” February 12, 2012. <http://www.acs.psu.edu/
Remarkable Phenomenon of Rotating Bodies, [From drussell/Demos/waves/wavemotion.html>.
the Memoirs of the Royal Academy, Berlin, 1852.].” In Russell, John Scott. “Experimental Researches into the
Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Laws of Certain Hydrodynamical Phenomena That
Foreign Academies of Science, and from Foreign Journals. Accompany the Motion of Floating Bodies, and Have
Natural Philosophy. Vol. 1. Taylor and Francis., 1853. Not Previously Been Reduced into Conformity with the
<http://books.google.com/books?id=C1i4AAAAIAAJ&lr=>. Known Laws of the Resistance of Fluids.” Transactions
Newton, Isaac. “A Letter of Mr. Isaac Newton, Professor of of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 14 (1839): 47 – 109.
the Mathematicks in the University of Cambridge; Stokes, George Gabriel. “On the Friction of Fluids in Motion
Containing His New Theory About Light and Colors: Sent and the Equilibrium and Motion of Elastic Solids [From
by the Author to the Publisher from Cambridge, Febr. 6. the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical
1671/72; In Order to Be Communicated to the R. Society.” Society, Vol VIII, P. 287.] 1845.” In Mathematical
Philosophical Transactions 6, no. 69 – 80 (January 1, and Physical Papers, George Gabriel Stokes and
1671): 3075 – 3087. <http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/ Baron Rayleigh John William Strutt. Vol. I. University
content/6/69-80/3075.short>. Press, 1880. <http://books.google.com/books?id=_
Oliva, Fran Cesca. Kelvin-Helmholtz, ‘Sunrise Waves’ Photo. YnvAAAAMAAJ>.
Photo, n.d. Weltner, Klaus, and Martin Ingelman-Sundberg. “Physics
Randolph, Philip (graphics), S. Allmaras (e393 airfoil 10° flow plot). of Flight-Revisited,” 2000. <http://user.uni-frankfurt.
Lower Air “Squeezed” Forward, 2009. de/~weltner/Flight/PHYSIC4.htm>.
Randolph, Philip (graphics), S. Allmaras (pressure plot, e64 airfoil, Winsor, Frederick, and Marian Parry (illustrator). The Space
5°). Flow Similarity, 2011. Child’s Mother Goose. Purple House Press, 2001.
Rayleigh, Baron John William Strutt. “On The Irregular Flight of a
Tennis-Ball.” In Scientific Papers: 1869 - 1881, 344 – 346,

D EUTSCHER A ERO C LUB E .V.
Mitglied der Fédération Aéronautique Internationale und des Deutschen Olympischen Sportbundes
BUNDESKOMMISSION MODELLFLUG – SA SEGELFLUG

www.modellflug-im-daec.de
FAI World Championship for Soaring

Model Aircraft F3F 2012
Kap Arkona / Germany
October 6th – October 13th
Bulletin 1
Bulletin 0 for the FAI World Championship F3F 2012

German Aero Club
May 2012 55
Type of Event: World Championship
Event Classification: 1st Category Event
Title of Event: 1st FAI World Championship for Slope Soaring Model Air-
craft F3F 2012
Date of Event: October 6th – 13th 2012
Location: Kap Arkona / Isle of Rügen / Baltic Sea
Organizer: German Aero Club (DAeC)

Bundeskommission Modellflug (Aeromodelling Commission)
Sub-committee Soaring classes
Official homepage: www.f3f.de
Invitation
The German Aero Club (DAeC) invites all Active or Associated Members of FAI (as defined by
FAI SC Gen Sec 3.5.4.3) to participate with a team in the 1st FAI World Championship for Slope
Soaring Model Aircraft F3F.
Junior World Championships

The World Championships will include a junior classification, according to SC4 Vol ABR B.3.4.
and B.3.5. NACs may enter a junior competitor by adding him/her to the senior team or even as
their only representative. The title of a Junior World Champion will be awarded if competitors
participate from at least four different nations. Regardless of the number of competitors, the or-
ganizer will honour the achievement of junior competitors at the official award ceremony. Entry
fee for juniors 165 € only!
Participation
The NACs respective Associated Members may enter a Team consisting of one Team Man-
ager, three senior pilots, one junior pilot and helpers. Supporters from all participating countries
are welcome.
Event- and Organization Director on behalf of the Aeromodelling Commission of the DAeC:
Franz Demmler, Merbitzer Straße 16, D-01157 Dresden, phone +49-351-2036650
mobil +49-1520-1736109, e-mail franz.demmler@f3f.de
Contest Director, on behalf of the Aeromodelling Commission of the DAeC:

Armin Hortzitz, Joseph-Schwarz-Weg 31, 81479 Munich, armin.hortzitz@arcor.de
Flight-Line-Management
Uwe Schönlebe, Jochen Kirsten, Robert Matthes
The Office to turn to is run by Executive Secretary Michael Thoma, DAeC, Hermann-Blenk-Str.
28, 38108 Braunschweig, e-mail m.thoma@daec.de, phone +49-531-23540-56 fax +49-531-
23540-11

German Aero Club

German Aero Club

Entry Fees Protest
Competitors € 330,00 This covers participation to the World Champi- Team Managers are entitled to file a complaint or to lodge a protest. Protest fee as stated SC4
onships, access to the flight line area, entry to Vol ABR B.18.1. Euro 35. If the protest is upheld the deposit is to be returned.
Opening Ceremony/Party and reception, souve-
nirs and gifts and includes the Banquet Fee.
Team € 330,00 This covers participation to the World Champi- Anti-doping
Managers onships, access to the flight line area, entry to In case a competitor has to take any of the substances listed on the 2012 WADA
Opening Ceremony/Party and reception, souve- Prohibited List for medical treatment he/she must bear a Therapeutic Use Exemption from the
nirs and gifts and includes the Banquet Fee. FAI, applied for no later than 21 days before the event. All participants of the F3F event shall
Helpers € 66,00 This covers participation to Worlds Champion- assure their acceptance of the FAI Anti-Doping Rules with their signature on the “Acknowl-
ships, access to the flight line, entry to Opening edgement and Agreement” form (see Bulletin 2).
Ceremony/Party and reception, souvenirs and
gifts.
Supporters € 50,00 This covers access to the World Championship, Documents to be presented at registration:
entry to Opening Ceremony/Party and reception, - Entry form signed and stamped by the National Aero Club / National Federation
souvenirs and gifts. - FAI Licenses of competitors and Team Managers
Banquet Fee € 30,00 Not nessecary for 1 - 2 - Proof of payment of entry fee
- Model certificates to be presented during model processing
Certificates + FAI Licences will be returned to the Team Managers after the Closing Ceremony.
Terms of Payment Please note: Flags and anthems are provided by the organizer and need not be brought by the
Entry Fees to be transferred no later than August 10th, 2012 national teams.
Recipient Address of Bank Intern. Money Transfer

Deutscher Aero Club Deutsche Bank PGK AG BIC: DEUTDEDB270 Awards
Attn. Michael Thoma Branch Bank Querum IBAN: FAI medals and Cups will be awarded to the first three individual places for senior and for junior
Hermann-Blenk-Strasse 28 Bevenroder Straße 123 DE92270700240344499904 pilots. FAI medals will also be awarded to the first three teams (competitors and their Team
D-38108 Braunschweig D-31108 Braunschweig Title: F3F WCh 2012, Country Managers). FAI diplomas for the first three individuals and teams, all other competitors will re-
Germany ceive diplomas of the inviting NAC.
FAI-Jury: Tomás Bartovský (CZE, S/C F3 Soaring Chairman, President) Official Language
Gerhard Wöbbeking (GER, CIAM 1st Vice-President) Official Languages are English and German.
Franz Prasch (AUT)
Emil Giezendanner (SUI, S/C F5 Chairman, Reserve)
Timetable
Saturday October 6th
Competition Rules Arrival
The event will be run according to the FAI Sporting Code, Section 4, Vol F3 Radio control Soar- 09:00 – 18:00 Processing and registration in the headquarter
ing Model Aircraft 2012 edition 09:00 – 18:00 FAI-World-Cup “German Open F3F” 1st day
Frequencies Sunday October 7th
2.4 GHz transmitters have to fulfil European Standard EN 300328. The maximum equivalent 09:00 – 15:00 Processing and registration in the headquarter
emission power EIRP is 100 mW peak. The transmitter must be CE marked and bear the decla- 09:00 – 17:00 FAI-World-Cup “German Open F3F” 2nd day
ration of conformity. Other transmitters for model aircraft must use the legal frequencies ap-
proved by the German “Federal Network Agency“ (Bundesnetzagentur) in the 35 MHz-Band.
18:00 Team manager meeting in the Headquarter
See the list of frequencies on the websites; frequencies within the 27 MHz- and the 40 MHz-
Band are not recommended.
20:00 Opening ceremony with reception of all teams
and public concert with the Philharmonic Brass
Orchestra of the Semper-Opera Dresden
German Aero Club
German Aero Club
May 2012 57
Monday October 8th
09:00 – 18:00 Rounds
Thuesday October 9th

09:00 – 18:00 Rounds
Wednesday October 10th

09:00 – 18:00 Rounds
Thursday October 11th

09:00 – 18:00 Rounds
th
Friday October 12
09:00 – 18:00 Rounds
Saturday October 13th Reserve day

18:00 Prize Giving Ceremony in the Rügenhof
19:30 Dinner-Bankett
Foods and Beverages

Because of the different venues it’s up the participants to buy foods and beverages for lunch at
the slopes. A big Supermarket in Altenkirchen, 6 km away from Putgarten, meets all needs. In
the evenings it is good practice to gather in the restaurants and pubs in Putgarten. With self
catering mainly one may count 15 € per person and day for foods and beverages.
Banquets
will take place Sunday October 7th, from 19:00 hours at the opening ceremony and Saturday
October 13th after the Prize giving Ceremony. Both banquets are free for registered Competi-
tors and Team Managers, drinks not included. Additional tickets for Saturday € 30 per person,
drinks not included. Additional tickets to be ordered during registration. The banquets will be
hosted at the barn in the Rügenhof Putgarten.
International Airports
Airport Berlin-Schönefeld (370 km)
Airport Hamburg (370 km)
Figure 1 and 2: Area Kap Arkona

54°40’20.90’’ N
13°24’50.74’’ E
www.kap-arkona.de
German Aero Club
German Aero Club

unique interplay of open sea and Bodden landscapes gives Rügen its unique appearance. It
Venue has special reputation as a recreational area. As it is furthermore one of the windiest regions of
The area at Kap Arkona on the Island of Rügen is one of the best known and most appreciated Germany it has developed to an El Dorado for sailors and surfers – and last but not least the
F3F areas worldwide. Slopes for all wind directions are available and the location has the high- model slope soaring community.
est probability for wind within Germany. Based on the experience of the organizer, the month of
October has proven to be particularly well suited.
Accommodation
The slopes are exclusively cliff lines directly facing the Baltic Sea. Therefore relatively even lift It’s up to the teams to book their accommodation. Please see the list of hotels and apart-
conditions without significant thermal influence are guaranteed. The competition is supported by ments, all *** plus. Available are other hotels, pensions, cottages, holiday flats, private rooms.
the local authorities and the hosting municipality of Putgarten, so - during the period of the Information at tourist centre of Kap Arkona http://www.ruegencenter.de; http://www.ruegen-
World Championship - unrestricted flying at the otherwise closed ridges is permitted. abc.de/ Apartments are usually equipped with two bedrooms and a modern kitchen; sometimes
breakfast is offered for extra money. Because of tourist’s demands, there are more apartments
offered than hotel rooms.
Hotel „Zum Kap Arkona“ 0049-38391-4330

http://www.zum-kap-arkona.de/
Official WCh Hotel + Headquarters of the competition direction. Participants are offered a dis-
count price of 33 € per person and day incl. breakfast (double room).
Hotel “Zur kleinen Meerjungfrau” 0049-38391-950 0

www.zur-kleinen-meerjungfrau.de 500 m away from the mostly used
world famous „Turbulator“ (west slope)
Holiday flat resort „Rügenhof“ 0049-38391-4000

http://www.kap-arkona.de/
Roomy and affordable flats for 2-9 persons are available. Average price per night and person is
15 € (without breakfast). Located 100 m from the headquarters.
Holiday Residency „Kap Arkona“ 0049-421-30 60 220

http://www.urlaubserlebnis-ruegen.de/ferienwohnung-kap-arkona.html
Comfortable holiday flats for up to 4 persons. Ca.15 € per night and person. Located 200 m
from the headquarters.
Figure 3: Probability density of wind speeds in wind direction sectors (deka-degrees) on Kap Arkona. Holiday flat resort „Hof Kracht“ Tel. 0049-42 09 91 91 80 Fax 0049-42 0991 91 82
http://www.hof-kracht.de/ E-Mail: hof-kracht@t-online.de
The German Aero Club (DAeC) hosts the International German Open at Rügen since 2001, with Luxurious holiday flat resort, exposed at the ridge and directly adjacent to the competition slope
participants from all over the world. The Viking Race 2004 at the same location is still consid- for south wind. 4-person flat for about 18 € per person (without breakfast), 2 km from the head-
ered as one of the most successful events ever in the history of the former unofficial World quarters.
championship of the former provisional FAI class F3F. Almost all potential pilots of the upcom-
ing world championships have participated in competitions hosted here during the last years. Hof „Wollin“ Tel. 03 83 91 / 40 80
Also the desire to promote the F3F class to an official one, with world championship status,
http://www.hof-wollin.de/
roots back to the multi-national discussion rounds held at Kap Arkona. Furthermore, the team of
Comfortable resort with flats for 2-8 persons. Price per person from 12 to 30 €. 2 km from the
organizers, officials and judges can refer to the successful hosting of six large international FAI
headquarters.
competitions and the Viking Race 2004.
The Island of Rügen

The Island of Rügen is the largest German island and excels by nature and landscapes of great
diversity. Main source of income is the tourism, which has a long tradition. Famous beach re-
sorts with the characteristic seaside-resort architecture of the 19th century characterize the is- Franz Demmler Uwe Schönlebe
land. But also dreamy, almost lonesome fisher villages belong to the island’s scenery. The Event- and Organization Director Bundeskommission Modellflug DAeC
Bulletin 0 for the FAI World Championship F3F 2012 Bulletin 0 for the FAI World Championship F3F 2012
German Aero Club German Aero Club
May 2012 59
2012
Cumberland
Soar-for-Fun
Spring Edition
Pete Carr WW3O, wb3bqo@yahoo.com

This was the third year for the spring Soar-for-Fun and the first The Vapor sits in
time that I was able to attend. The event bracketed the weekend the foam shipping
of March 24/25 but started on Thursday and ended on Monday. tray. It has small
The e-mail I received from Jim Dolly was that maybe there LED lights along
would be some good weather flying days in there somewhere. the leading edge
of the wing. These
There were!
were no help
I selected Sunday and Monday to attend, so showed up at all in the fog.
about 10 AM at the gate which is about 1.5 miles up a very Possibly the next
unimproved dirt track on the side of the mountain. version will have
The gate was locked! fog lights for days
like this.
Yes, it was cloudy and there was some fog but the guys were
normally at the meadow on the hilltop by 9:00. I waited only a
few minutes and then a convoy of vehicles arrived to open the
gate. It was obvious that the pre-flight chats had taken place
over coffee and breakfast in town.
We drove up to the meadow and were greeted by fog so
thick that vehicles 10 feet away disappeared. The grass was
extremely slippery so even the 4-wheel drive SUVs were sliding
around.
One of the guys had brought a Night Vapor electric plane and
got it out. Who would bring a Night Vapor to a slope event! Well,
he did and proceeded to put in several very nice flights never
exceeding eyebrow height. I had seen one of those fly at the
Toledo Show last year in the big room and was impressed that
it could take off and land by hand.
About an hour later, as the fog began to lift, another pilot flew
a 36 inch hand launch sailplane that was controlled by the
airborne unit from a Vapor. He did really well with the ship and
Opposite page: The building now has a set of solar panels on A Night Vapor electric three channel aircraft circles back to the
the roof. These charge a set of gel-cell batteries that supply pilot is heavy fog. It was high noon and without any wind on
power for charging radios and electric packs. The building was top of the 1600 foot Old Knobley Hill just south of Cumberland,
also good shelter from the cold winds on Monday. Maryland.
May 2012 61
A gas powered Senior Telemaster has
just been assembled. This wood kit also
makes an excellent electric tow tug.
Jim Dolly used a length of yellow tow line
from the hardware store and usually used
for chalk lines.
The 3+ meter span Pilatus tow tug has

the side door open to reveal the 80
ounce fuel tank. The tow point is just
visible at the trailing edge of the orange
stripe on the top of the fuselage. The
sliding side doors required additional
fasteners in flight because they bulged
outward into the airstream.

A homebrew 36 inch span HLG was flown to check the fog
ceiling. It has the radio from a Night Vapor and uses carbon
pushrods. The front pod is soft styrofoam. Rotary launches
resulted in the ship rolling inverted at max height but then
it would roll out. This may be a whole new way of launching
HLGs without a mixing type radio.
routinely got better than a minute in the inch Telemaster together to tow. This fuselage. Given the rather tall rudder
still air of the meadow. was a gas version of the design that has I asked if the line would hang up and
About 1:30 PM the sun came out and been used with electric power to tow the cause trouble.
the temperature jumped 15 degrees in 120 inch and smaller ships with ease. He asked if I’d ever flown full scale
about 15 minutes. We had been standing Jim said that the electric version could sailplanes but I had only watched them
around watching the fun in coats and get about 15 tows per battery charge launch at Ridge Soaring Glider Port near
gloves but shed them for t-shirts and sun depending on the wind and the size of State College.
glasses. the sailplane.
He mentioned that the big ships were
Most of the guys assembled their smaller We also discussed the position of the towed from the tail of the tow plane and
slope ships while Jim Dolly put a 100 towline attached to the Telemaster. It were instructed to remain at the same
was just aft of the wing at the top of the
May 2012 63
altitude as the tow ship while climbing
out. That’s fine if the pilot can judge his
alignment but isn’t possible with models.
For that reason the tow line is mounted
high and the sailplane flies above the tow
plane on climb out. The towline stays
above the rudder so the tow pilot is free
to make turns in either directions without
worrying about the tail.
Later, Jim showed me his very large
Pilatus tow plane. It had a balanced
rudder and again, the tow line was
mounted just behind the wing.
Jim said that he’s never had the line hang
up in the rudder hinge with that setup.
He did mention that the sliding side
doors of the model would bulge out from
the wind blast and he was afraid they
would come off in flight. They are needed
to access the inner workings of the
model so are not just for looks.
Jim had used 4-40 blind nuts and screws
to fasten the doors in place just before
Above: Jim Dolly holds the Lunak fuselage as the elevator controls were checked out. flight.
It had two pushrods, one to each elevator half, joined to single ball link at the servo. I didn’t get to see the Pilatus fly but can
Pushrod lengths were individually adjustable to set trim. guess that, with an 80 ounce fuel tank, it
could tow all day!
The building has a new addition on its
roof. Solar panels have been installed
Opposite page: What a difference a day makes. A DAW KA-6
foam sailplane is set to launch. The hundred inch ship was that charge some 12-volt gel-cell
not ballasted yet did very well in the gusty windy of Monday batteries. The purpose is to allow electric
morning. The factory at the southern end of the valley is in the modelers to charge their planes and
distance. radios from the site battery supply.
May 2012 65
There is a station available under the rigid
canopy in front of the building for this
purpose. That’s a very nice touch since
there is no electric service anywhere near
to site.
Monday was very clear and cold with a
30 to 40 knot wind out of the north. That
is basically across the hill.
We got to the meadow about 10 AM and
spent some time watching the view from
inside the building.
Finally some of the braver souls got out a
few planes and used a bungy to launch.
Because of the tree line at the edge
of the meadow there is considerable
turbulence on the way out over the valley.
It is a good idea to have about 50 feet
of altitude before venturing out over
those trees or they will flip you over in a
heartbeat!
First up was a DAW KA-6 foamy that
performed amazingly well in the choppy
conditions. It was not ballasted so had
an extra exciting time on landing!
An Artimus 3-meter sailplane is recharged in the wind. This 10 year old ship looked as
The rest of the slopers used the bungy if it were new and performed extremely well in the choppy lift. It was launched from a
and had no problems with their flights. medium size bungy so as to clear the trees and turbulence at the edge of the meadow.
By noon the wind had increased so that
I was not willing to get the two 12-foot
sailplanes out of the truck to fly. I could
just see them folding the wings on launch
so decided to say goodbye and depart
for home.

The Spring event is much different than
the one each fall because of the weather
and the conditions.
I was so used to seeing the fall foliage
and colors that the place looked far
different to me.
Still, the guys were great and the air was
wonderful.
Because of the hilltop location it’s
possible to fly for miles, literally.
It would take my fairly fast sailplane
about ten minutes to fly from the south
end of the valley, over the factory, north
to the edge of visibility.
Much of the lift was from the farm fields
down below while occasional slope lift
could be found as the wind picked up. All
told, it combines the fun of the thermal
hunt with the aerobatics of slope lift.
Jim has a web site and the local soaring
club has one, too. They are listed here
so that pilots can check the dates for the
next event.
A two meter 4-channel slope ship is ready to launch via the bungy. While the air was
Resources:
very clear it was coming across the slope so lift was spotty. That also made landings
High Point model club difficult in the turbulence but no planes were damaged.
<http://www.highpoint-aviation.org>
Jim Dolly’s e-mail address

jdolly@atlanticbb.net
Source for the DAW KA-6 sailplane
<http://www.skykingrcproducts.com>
May 2012 67
Aeroclub Israel
F5J JUNIORS COMPETITION
Text by Rene Wallage, rene_wallage@yahoo.com
Photos by Ari Silbermintz

In order to breathe some new life into the and the youthful alike. That was also why to zero, and start counting again when
Israeli F5J scene, 13 pilots, the Aeroclub most pilots had a 2 meter Gentle Lady the motor is switched off.
Israel (the Israeli equivalent of the AMA) look alike. That, or a smaller version of • The landing pattern must be entered
organized a competition for (electric) the venerable Lady. All build from plans, before the glider is at 5 meters altitude
motorized gliders up to 2.15 meter and outfitted with two standard sized For this the adjacent tree line was a point
wingspan. The date was set for Friday servos, Chinese motor/ESC/Lipo setups, of reference. Usually this is 3 meters, but
March 9th. and simple 4-channel radios. taking into account the inexperienced
While we were getting closer to the date The competition direction was in the pilots, 5 meters was deemed safer. If
the weather turned worse, and worse, capable hands of the same person who the glider is lower than that, it must
and worse… founded this new section for juniors, Mr. be landed in the security zone to the
Up till a week before the competition Israel Ofek. A familiar name amongst windward side of the launch line, and no
date we had an unusually cold and wet European F5J pilots, as he won the points are awarded for the flight.
two months, complete with rain, snow,
and high winds.
But the day of competition dawned, and
we had sun and clear skies. The mud 2 meter gliders are just perfect
had dried up, apart from some small
puddles. Those who decided to wear for this kind of competition.
sandals paid the price…
Wind was forecasted as northerly at 6
to 8 knots, increasing after 10h00 to 10
to 12 knots. The right direction for our • A spot landing will give an extra 50
field, but a bit strong (but do-able) for the European F5J championship four times points. Less points for each meter away
gliders. over the past six years. from the spot. 10 meters or more will give
As the competition was going to start At the briefing, Israel explained the no landing points.
at 09h00, around 08h00 saw the arrival (somewhat modified) rules: • No landing bonus after the 10 minutes
of assorted competitors, friends, family, • Each pilot will fly four flights are up. Although, considering the strong
and shop teachers. Some were not very wind, that would not be very likely to
pleased with the waist high weed growth • Working time is 10 minutes,
happen.
of the landing area. But these turned out • The appointed timer will start the
to be a blessing in disguise. More on that stopwatch when the motor is switched Israel also stressed that the aim of
later. off. today’s competition was mostly to have
fun.
Most pilots came from the Kfar Saba • If a pilot decides to restart his glider’s
and Ra’anana branches of the Aeroclub, motor, the timer will reset the stopwatch And, as for all pilots this was their first
where they have workshops for youths ever competition, he had made sure that
May 2012 69
at each launch spot – in addition to the launching and forgetting to activate the could have been a good tactic with less
timer - there was an experienced pilot motor. wind, but with the wind as it was, this
at hand to mentor the pilots. For some Also, at the first launch, while following would lead to the glider ending up high
inexplicable reason I was appointed “my” pilot’s glider zooming up, from the overhead, being pushed back by the
mentor as well. corner of my eye I saw one glider cut wind behind the landing area, with very
Nerves and jitters were high before the across the line followed by an ominous little chance of making good time and
first launch. balsa crunch. I think another glider was landing on the spot. Plus that, some had
involved as well. But due to the waist to loop out of the climb, losing precious
My first task as mentor was to calm altitude.
the pilot down. The nerves caused high weeds, virtually every arrival, no
pilots to not be in place and ready on matter how unorganized, was a soft one. That first flight, with the pressure, nerves,
time, launching a minute or so late, or As the gliders were overpowered, most and trying flying conditions, it was hard
pilots went vertical at launch. That to get a good flight.
Left to right: mentor, pilot, timer
May 2012 71
May 2012 73
One of the hard parts of flying in these When the time for landing approached, and a hard landing. Thank you, waist
conditions with rudder/elevator gliders is many pilots were fooled by the high high weeds.
always not to over react. All that swishing speed downwind leg, and turned too late A better tactic was to launch at a 60 to
around of the right stick can make you into final. Others tried to “float” in, only to 70 degree angle into the wind, ending
lose altitude in the blink of an eye. I had be pushed back by the wind. up at altitude and in an area where there
a hard time to convince a pilot to stop Some followed the mentors’ advice, and was relatively good air.
moving his right stick as if he was stirring turned on time and at the right altitude,
his coffee. After their first flight, things calmed down
but couldn’t get themselves to keep the somewhat. Pilots were starting to relax,
Those first flights most pilots reached nose down enough to keep the speed up reacting more to the mentors’ advice,
times of four to five minutes and hardly and stay in control. This resulted in heavy and flight quality increased.
any landing points. porpoising, eventually leading into a stall,
Left to right: mentor Rene Wallage, pilot

Erez Blumenthal, and spotter Daddy
Blumenthal

All pilots, with Israel Ofek and his Espada in the back row on the left.
May 2012 75
The last two flights times of seven to eight minutes were the
norm. Even better, landings were getting closer to the spot as
well! One of the last flights even ended a few seconds short of
10 minutes, and just off the spot as well!
As with most competitions, there was some mayhem. Some
motors decided to part company with the fuse. One even took
the ESC and lipo with it, never to be found again. A tail group
dropped off at launch. And some propeller blades whirled
around, solo. Most damage was repaired/replaced on the spot.
One unlucky pilot had the motormount ripped off, and couldn’t
do a proper repair, so a friend let him fly his plane instead!
Most spectacular though, was one glider literally going up

in smoke! The result of forcing a 3S lipo in a tight space.
The cells ripped and shorted. Lipo, ESC, all the wiring,
probably the motor, and maybe the receiver and servos,
all gone. A sure reminder of proper lipo handling.
Also, as with most competitions, in the end winners must be

announced.
Israel tallied the scores on his laptop, and found that third
place was reached, with 3430 points, by Nathanel Silbermintz.
Second, with 3804 points, was Eran Hilo. And with 3942 points,
in first place was Elad Hamawi.
In general, despite some initial misgivings over the chosen
venue, a great time was had by all. The atmosphere was
“serious business,” but incredibly friendly, and very relaxed. The
2 meter gliders are just perfect for this kind of competition. If
postage wasn’t so prohibitively expensive I would have a Gentle
Lady kit on the way right now. I am genuinely looking forward to
the next competition.
Left to right: 3rd place Nathanel Silbermintz, 1st place

Elad Hamawi, and 2nd place Eran Hilo
May 2012 77
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· One Heavy-Duty zipper goes around The size of the bags was selected just
· Double layer of foam padding inside because there are a lot of larger planes
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your needs or for ease of cleaning your · The carrying handle is wrapped around
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Above right: Zipper detail
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— John Marien
May 2012 79

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SoaringDigest

Radi C ntr lled

May 2012 Vol. 29, No. 5

Upper Streamline Pressure Trough Wave

Scales, Coefficients of Pressure

Black Eagle PSS Festival 55

4 Frederick William Lanchester's Aeroclub Israel

2 R/C Soaring Digest

Frederick William Lanchester’s Let’s go straight to conclusions: The modern, ‘bound-

4 R/C Soaring Digest

1 Your author found Lanchester, and a short reference

6 R/C Soaring Digest

8 R/C Soaring Digest

Franz Josef von Gerstner, 1802, and the

10 R/C Soaring Digest

The oscillating, vertical component of a circular motion is a ‘simple harmonic motion.’

Adding a linear velocity to a circular motion makes a more complex waveform.

‘Adding’ a linear flow velocity to asymmetrical ‘circulation’ velocities makes an even

Wave/Wind Tunnel/Flow Perspective Circulation Perspective

12 R/C Soaring Digest

14 R/C Soaring Digest

16 R/C Soaring Digest

18 R/C Soaring Digest

Figure 11: Lanchester figured his ‘acceleration fields’ would persist

20 R/C Soaring Digest

22 R/C Soaring Digest

Upper streamline kinetic energy (mv2/2)

Lowered pressure energy

Lower streamline total energy (dotted orange)

24 R/C Soaring Digest

26 R/C Soaring Digest

© 2011 Philip Randolph

28 R/C Soaring Digest

Huge mass of runway provides strong inertial resistance to downwash

30 R/C Soaring Digest

g ravit Zero gravit

The wing wave can be understood, and validated, similarity.’

forces make similar flows The pressure gradient from

Earthquake (or Jell-O) wave crests Te n s i o n

forward. That is similar to the wave

34 R/C Soaring Digest

© 2011 Philip Randolph

36 R/C Soaring Digest

38 R/C Soaring Digest

40 R/C Soaring Digest

Region A. Acceleration Region B. Deceleration

42 R/C Soaring Digest

Scales, Coefficients of Pressure

44 R/C Soaring Digest

46 R/C Soaring Digest

Ergo sum Endnotes:

48 R/C Soaring Digest

50 R/C Soaring Digest

52 R/C Soaring Digest

54 R/C Soaring Digest

BUNDESKOMMISSION MODELLFLUG – SA SEGELFLUG

FAI World Championship for Soaring

Bulletin 0 for the FAI World Championship F3F 2012

Organizer: German Aero Club (DAeC)