The other night we were talking about theories of flight. Well here you go: How Airplanes Work

There are many simplified explanations of lift that appear on the Internet and in some textbooks. Two of the most popular explanations today are the Longer Path explanation (also known as the Bernoulli or equal transit time explanation) and the Newtonian explanation (also known as the momentum transfer or air deflection explanation). While many versions of these explanations are fundamentally flawed, they can still contribute to an intuitive understanding of how lift is created.

Anyway, onto some videos. Shandyman sent me this video of a helicopter crash.

So I went a looking and found this page of all sorts of aviation videos.

Some are shocking, some are funny. Like the ‘drunk’ Korean airliner. Brilliant landing.

And Jet Blast!

Update: BWG has more, and says that the drunk airliner is actually landing at Kai Tak.

Reason for an ale?

The autumnal equinox is the day when the sun crosses the equator from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere. By the modern Gregorian calendar, this date usually falls on September 23 or 24. On this day, the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west, and day and night become the same length. From this day on, days begin getting shorter than nights in the Northern Hemisphere.

Or, in astro terms, declination 0

It’s a question that has taxed generations of the finest minds in physics: do humans swim slower in syrup than in water? And since you ask, the answer’s no. Scientists have filled a swimming pool with a syrupy mixture and proved it.

Apparently this was something that Newton pondered.