GA Airfoil By Harry Riblett

okay an airfoil is anything that's designed to manipulate the flow of air to produce lift the ideal shape depends on how fast and at what altitude it's going to be flown at but they all are shaped to manipulate the flow of air to produce a force okay airplanes move in three dimensions we can control pitch roll and yaw so they move around three axes the lateral axis which extends from wingtip to wingtip the vertical axis which extends up through the middle and then the longitudinal axis which extends from the nose through to the tail okay now let's just talk about some basic airfoil terms with the upper surface the lower surface a leading edge the trailing edge the cord line is just an imaginary line that gets drawn from the trailing edge through the leading edge the relative wind is just the airflow as it passes over the airfoil whatever direction the airflow is coming from and passing