This link is old. The new one is this: <a href="https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/</a>. I know that sometimes old links are gold, but I can't tell if this is really the case.
Grumble — both this site and the newer one someone else posted [1] link to an old and somewhat misleading diagram of how an airplane wing works [2].<p>The problem with the diagram is that the "lines" both ahead of the wing and behind the wing are pretty much flat — as if the air ultimately returns to where it was as the wing moves through it (to be fair, the lines are a little wobbly in the diagram).<p>That's misleading because if the wing has a net force upwards (ie lift), then the air must have a net force downward. You can't invent forces out of thin air (literally, in this case :). Yes, there's Bernoulli’s principle and all that, but fundamentally: if the wing is pushed up, then the air must be pushed down. The mechanism for how that happens is a separate discussion.<p>This is an issue that has been debated back and forth for a long time, so I don't want to re-hash it in this comment, but I think it's fair to say at a minimum that those diagrams are misleading, and fly (ha) in the face of Newtonian laws of physics.<p>I expect better from NASA.<p>Here's good short Veritasium video on the subject: <a href="https://youtu.be/aFO4PBolwFg?t=13" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/aFO4PBolwFg?t=13</a><p>Also good: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmDYbnGnhpA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmDYbnGnhpA</a> (part 1), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21YB4qCvIK4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21YB4qCvIK4</a> (part 2), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE27CXLXbp0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE27CXLXbp0</a> (part 3)<p>[1] <a href="https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/aerodynamic-forces/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/aer...</a>
Is there something of the like but for orbital mechanics? Out of all the engineering that is nearly superhuman to get us to do everything we do in space, there's something about the knowing that "if I point it at this direction, in 3 days time, going this fast, it'll hit this object in 4 days" that I just find utterly fascinating but am hopelessly ignorant about.
This is excellent: "See How It Flies": <a href="http://www.av8n.com/how/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.av8n.com/how/</a>
Related link <a href="https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/</a> covers Hypersonics, Beginner's Guide to Kites, Kid's Page explaining how airplanes and jet engines work, Beginner's Guide to Model Rockets, Beginner's Guide to Propulsion, Aerodynamics of Baseball, Aerodynamics of Soccer. It has some repetition with respect to the main link.