And the Coanda effect makes the air stick to the top surface of the wing even if it has a curvature and therefore will drive the air downwards creating lift, I think these three effects work together to produce lift. How they work is still in debate, but we can mention the effects involved with this process: The Bernoulli effect creates a low pressure on top of the surface, the third law of Newton which simply states that the force of the air pushing the bottom of the wing will drive it upwards. The airfoil changes naturally along the span of the wing just like nowadays in our airplanes.Īirplane wings have a slightly different airfoil adjusted for the performance they need. Looking at the wing of a bird a shape of an airfoil is seen, of course, birds normally fly at slow speeds so most of them will have an undercambered airfoil, which will produce more lift at slow speeds. Or for the contrary, if you want a fast airplane, you need a completely different airfoil.

An airfoil is a special shape that will produce lift when it’s moved through the air in one direction, the shape can be seen if we look at the cross-section of a wing, a lot of physics is involved in the study of these shapes, to produce lift efficiently, and there are lots of shapes that can be used for different scenarios, not all are good for every situation, so if you plan to use an airfoil for a slow airplane there’s a good airfoil for that.

Glider airfoil