With the advent of flight simulations bringing virtual flight to the masses new and exciting forms of aerodynamics have emerged! In fact Aces High are full of these new aeronautics experts now.
Aerowhinenamics: experts in this field provide brilliant colorful analysis often around a favorite airplane and why it’s porked. But don’t be fooled by their specialization because they are usually quite adept at providing colorful commentary and analysis of other aircraft too and still show why their favorite plane is porked in the process. They are so incredibly gifted that at times they have proven time and again that you can actually compare apples and oranges!
Masters of obscure research they are able to tell you that airspeed indicator readings of flight tests reports are actually incorrect because the needle would get stuck since the gears from ACME used for the gauge had a machine flaw in them. Some experts in this field have made great strides in actually proving that their favorite aircraft was produced and operational 4 months before the manufacturing plant said they were delivered.They can prove that all speeds and turning ability are all too low compared to the “real life” versions of their aircraft, their data coming from one report out of 23 others that show different (but the other 23 didn’t factor in the airspeed needle getting stuck you see). Yes, experts in this field all know that given the opportunity their favorite airplane would have undoubtedly singlehandedly “won the war” at a 20:1 kill ratio.
Aerowrongnamics:experts in this field of study are some of the greatest geniuses the world has ever seen. In just one or two sentences they are able to demonstrate how daft Sir Isaac Newton was and the principles behind Newtonian physics. Often the venue for their innovative breakthroughs in physics come when an airplane in a sim doesn’t perform the way it supposed to in THEIR world of physics.
No need to step on the shoulders of giants, these experts leap over Prandtl and von Karman like they were hobbits and are able to estimate how an airplane should perform all in their heads without ever resorting to things like numerical methods of partial differential equations that mere mortals have to use. Masters of the physics generalizations like “the Spitfire XVI holds energy too well”, they usually prove these statements by flinging out a few well timed aerodynamics statements that on inspection brilliantly smash through Newton and Bernoulli. Meanwhile, the rest of us aerodweebs are left in the mental dust trying to sort out how on earth they reached those conclusions never realizing that our basis to trust Newton was totally flawed to begin with. Often times these experts can be bulldogs coming back time and again to convert others to their “advanced” thinking providing various proofs where they are indeed correct and Newton wrong. Indeed true pioneers of aerodynamics and remakers of the rules of physics!
Aerodumbnamics:this is a cousin to the field of aerowrongnamics. Experts here however don’t have to resort to plowing through Newton at all. No need to explain things via Newton because these experts have an intuition that tells them what’s aerodynamically right or wrong. Because of their intuition there’s no need to study aerodynamics either.Sometimes the field is called Aerohunchnamics - experts here are masters of relying on their hunches to identify when something is amiss. Often they are able to collect data based on these hunches to support the hunches. But this is done in a truly clever way by looking for data that supports the hunch and throwing the other useless data away. Quite clever these experts are!
They are so confident in their hunches that often times they’ll put the data out there to prove something is amiss and then delegate to some other poor fool to spend the time and energy to slave through intricate calculations and mind-numbing science to try and prove or disprove their hunch for them. Many aerodumbnamicists don’t believe in UFO’s and site this as a common reason for why a sim’s flight model is wrong (e.g. “the Brewster Buffalo flies like a UFO!”).
Aeromythnamics:(Sometimes also known as Aerofairytalenamics) The experts in this field of the science of flight scoff at the other experts because they know that the TRUE measure of flight performance has nothing to do with physics at all. For the high priests in this field they know that the true measure of understanding the physics of flight comes from the stories of the pilots themselves. The Holy Bible of flight performance are the countless reports from historical references and pilot reports that these experts have burned permanently into their brains (this somehow acts as a force field which protects them to any misguided physics logic thrown at them by physics barbarians).
They know that things like lift coefficients, weight, l/d ratios, propeller efficiency, are all just worthless techno-babble. If Robbie Robertson said he outturned a Bf109 in his P-47, or Geinz Huderian said he out-climbed a Spitfire in his FW190 then that’s the way a sim should always work Newton’s law’s be damned. Pilot perception IS reality, to Hades with Newton. I mean who would listen to ideas from a guy who got hit in the head by an apple anyways vs. a triple ace? How silly is that?
Cheers,
Tango
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
