Electric Josh

Here is a very long and terrible answer to the question, "Why do airplanes fly?" It's a hopelessly confused mess because it explains the wrong thing. Airplanes stay in the air because they push air downward with exactly enough force to compensate for the weight of the plane. The text linked to above is more of a treatise on how to design a wing that pushes air downward. Only non-answers to questions about curving baseballs are more insanely annoying than this sort of non-answer to questions about how airplanes stay aloft. You should get a copy of The Physics of Baseball and read it before trying to say anything about the physics of baseball. I don't know of a similarly handy text about the aerodynamics of airplanes, but if you can talk about airplanes without saying "Bernoulli Principle" then you're probably on the right track. [Update: Such a text may be See How It Flies. I say "may" because I've only read the very nice part about the balance of forces on a plane. All this stuff from reddit, in the sidebar, by the way.]
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For a guy who's about to go to Vermont to ski next weekend, Mad River closing early is exactly the opposite of what I want to hear. Ugh.
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