Found on ada (was Lift Theories)

"Avril Poisson" wrote in message
...

The Role of Lift Demons and Thrust Pixies in Heavier
Than Air Flight
Publication Date: April 2005

Abstract: The role of Lift Demons in aeronautics was
first explained in 1994
by Mary Shafer (NASA). Since then, Shafer's work has
been explored and
revised. This paper summarises advances in Lift Demon
technology over the
last decade.

Keywords: Lift Demons, Thrust Pixies, lemon fondant

Question: How did the secret information on Lift Demons
make it into the
public domain? I've been a practising Aircraft
Performance Engineer for the
past 26 years and have always tried to explain how
aeroplanes fly by using
the official public explanations regarding Bernoulli,
airfoils and other
such rot. Civilians just weren't ready for the truth.
In fact, we generally
don't speak about the magic directly. Most of our plans
and estimates
usually end with the phrase "and then a miracle
happens".

Answer: The science of Lift Demons was declassified in
1994, throwing this
topic wide open for discussion and research.

According to Shafer "Lift is caused by Lift Demons.
These little, invisible
demons hold on to the leading and trailing edges of the
aircraft and lift it
into the air by flapping their wings (so, in a
reductionist sense, lift is
actually caused by feathers). Some of the demons are a
little confused and
they hold on backwards, causing drag. The reason that
planes stall at high
alpha is that the leading edge demons get scared and
let go when they can't
see the ground anymore. Lift demons have good taste and
don't like to look
at ugly aircraft, so they hold on backwards on ugly
planes. That's why
gliders have so much lift and so little drag and why
F-4s have lots of
drag." This, however, did not address what gives lift
to the Lift Demons'
wings. Again, according to Shafer "Feathers. The
multiple filaments on
feathers trap the air molecules and they struggle to
escape, which causes
the action-reaction that we call lift. Bat wings don't
have feathers but
they're hairy and that works just about as well (air
molecules are a little
claustrophobic)."

It was originally believed that Lift Demons got their
lift from smaller Lift
Demons whose lift was, in turn, produced by even
smaller Lift Demons leading
to the "Infinite Demons Theory" as proposed by the
great Greek
philosopher-scientist Miasma. However, with the revival
of scientific
knowledge that eventually ended the Dark Ages, it was
realised that this
situation unresolvable according to Zeno's paradox. The
"Infinite Demons
Theory" works in many problems of engineering
significance, however, real
understanding requires that the ether be introduced
into the analysis at
some point. The "Ether Concept" explains why planes fly
more efficiently at
higher altitudes. This is an absolute necessity when
studying orbital and
interplanetary travel where, it is believed, many of
the Lift Demons are
unable to breathe.

As always the Chinese seem to have been there first.
"The Genius of China",
tells of one Ko Hung. "Someone asked the Master (Ko
Hung) about the
principles of mounting to dangerous heights and
travelling into the vast
inane. The Master said "[...] some have made flying
cars with wood from the
inner part of the jujube tree, using ox leather straps
fastened to returning
blades so as to set the machine in motion. Others have
the idea of making
five snakes, six dragons and three oxen to meet the
'hard wind' and ride on
it, not stopping until they have risen to a height of
40 li (about 65,000
feet). The the ch'i [emanation of the sky or perhaps
wind] is extremely
hard, so much so that it can overcome the strength of
human beings. [...]
Take dragons, for example; when they first rise they go
up using the clouds
as steps, and after they attained a height of forty li
then they rush
forward effortlessly gliding." The jujube tree device
sounds like the
Osprey. Scholars believe that the term "dragon"
referred to the Lift Demon
and that the Chinese had harnessed their power before
the Western world had
even discovered the Lift Demons' existence.

Lift Demons operate differently on different aircraft
types. They get dizzy
holding onto a spinning prop and become disorientated,
thus more of them
face the wrong direction which increases the drag. Lift
Demons have to be
magically bound to jet engines and an Airbus propulsion
engineer explained
"It takes an average of three day's solid chanting and
ritual to get one of
those 'engine' things to work. If us witches stopped
our hard work, there'd
be planes dropping out of the sky all over the place.
We should never have
let you lot find out about being able to fly, it's been
nothing but trouble
ever since."

Recognition of Lift Demons has also solved one of
aviation's oldest puzzles:
Gremlins. There appears to be a connection between
Gremlins and Lift Demons.
Gremlins may be Lift Demons that have, in some way,
turned against the
pilot. Instead of assisting him in his task of keeping
the machine in the
air, they do the opposite. The reason may be that,
after reading about the
Bernoulli/Newton dichotomy, they have become confused.
Much has been written
about Gremlins, dating back to WWII. Gremlins have been
known to run towards
the nose of an aircraft, causing it to dive into the
sea, showing that they
have at least some knowledge of the principles of
flight. These days, most
planes carry a full complement of In-Flight Gremlins;
although they must be
carefully managed, their presence generally inhibits
the transformation of
rogue Lift Demons into Gremlins.

Further study of Lift Demons was carried out by an
aero-industry weights
engineer who submitted the following scientific paper
in 2004 to celebrate
the anniversary of Shafer's ground-breaking article:

"There are still people in this company who think we
weigh aircraft to find
out how much they weigh, not to calculate stresses. Of
course we need to
know how much the thing weighs. How are we ever going
to know how many
Thrust Pixies we need to get the thing off the ground
if we don't know the
weight? Or should that be "Lift Demons"? Pixies have
largely fallen into
disrepute - something about Bernoulli not being
representative in unbounded
conditions and cause and effect being transposed in the
Newtonian model.

In fact the use of Lift Demons on civil aircraft
programmes is generally not
that good an idea. The Demon binding contract tends to
specify payment in
blood or souls. This is readily achievable with
aircraft of military
function, but frowned upon in civilian circles as they
may attempt to
acquire payment outside of the terms of their binding
contract. Lift Demons
are not used on Elf bombers. We don't talk about Lift
[Thrust] Pixies too
often as it seems to upset the self-loading cargo
[passengers]. Pixies
require payment in cakes, flowers or nice thoughts.
These are readily
sourced either from the in-flight catering, or provided
cost-free by the
passengers. Clearly this would not work well within an
operational military
environment. Air force cooking is not renowned for the
"light and fluffy
texture" that Thrust Pixies demand, the availability of
flowers might be
problematic in desert operations, and nice thoughts may
also be hard to find
during times of active operations.

There is also a scalability issue. While one rampant
Lift Demon would have
few problems supporting a fighter aircraft
(particularly if there is an
immediate prospect of blood), it'll struggle to achieve
level controlled
flight of a 560 tonne Airbus A380. Use of more than one
Lift Demon on the
same flight vehicle is contra-indicated (they squabble
and eat each other).
Communities of Thrust Pixies can be encouraged to work
together on the same
aircraft by the provision of advanced technologies such
as Lemon fondant
icing, variegated tulips or in-flight romantic
comedies. Ryanair once
requested Leprachauns be installed in place of Lift
[Thrust] Pixies, but
Leprechauns have a mission statement which indicates
their desire for
monetary gain, and their willingness to search all over
the world for it.
This makes Lift Leprechauns expensive to keep (gold vs.
lemon fondant
icing), and makes it difficult to establish a regular
route network as the
Lift Leprechauns don't like to continuously visit the
same locations. By
law, aircraft also have to have a full complement of
In-Flight Gremlins, but
these are generally not a problem unless you feed the
Wingtip Vortex Faeries
after midnight."

His article shows that we've moved on a great deal
since 1994. It has been
known for some time that Lift Demons are best suited to
military uses. In
spite of suggestions that Pixies have fallen into
disrepute, outside of
military aviation it is Lift Demons that are considered
passé - they have
notoriously short attention spans and the ones used on
Harriers have
problems discriminating between air and water.
Inbreeding in pursuit of the
ultimate high performance Lift Demon may have been the
cause. In civil
aviation, the way ahead still lies with Thrust Pixies,
large amounts of
lemon fondant icing and in-flight Hugh Grant movies.
Many instances of civil
planes mysteriously falling out of the sky can be
traced to (a) cessation of
happy thoughts/lack of lemon fondant for the pixies
(resulting in "Pixie
Fatigue" or even "catastrophic pixie failure") or to
(b) a large amount of
happy thoughts/gateau mountain at ground level
distracting the pixies from
their task. Thrust Pixies dislike Marmite/Vegemite
(yeast extract) and
since such spreads can cause unhappy thoughts in some
passengers, airline
caterers are careful to avoid these.

A note on Catastrophic Pixie Failu Temporary pixie
problems resulting in
turbulence or sudden loss of altitude causes unhappy
thoughts in the
passengers (which is why cabin staff and pilots always
play down such
occurrences). The resulting loss of happy thoughts
causes further Pixie
failure, worsening the situation. This makes passengers
have even more
unhappy thoughts and the Pixies become more fatigued;
some may even leave
the aircraft. Unless counter-acted by large lemon
fondant reserves, Pixie
Failure reaches catastrophic proportions and the
aircraft is doomed.

Modern aircraft designers use Lift Fairies and avoid
the whole controversy
regarding the used of Lift Demons on civil aircraft
programmes. Coming from
a less benevolent cast, Lift Fairies are less dependent
on nice thoughts or
cakes. Fairies tend to less concerned with good and
evil and hence make
better dual use aircraft. Another major headache today
is how to get 707
Lift Fairies at a reasonable price. Many of the older
aircraft-specific
fairies have become rare, if not unavailable. Aircraft
numbering relates to
the type and quantity of Lift Demons or Lift Fairies
needed. For example a
C-130 requires 130 "C class" Lift Demons while an
Airbus A380 uses 380 "A"
class Thrust Pixies. Aero engineers have a scale of
values (proprietary
information, not available in the public domain)
allowing them to substitute
different numbers of Pixies and Demons with different
lifting abilities,
thus making best use of the available surfaces.

There was short-lived interest in breeding a generic,
or at least dual-use,
"Thrust Demon" but the blood-loving Lift Demons ate the
gateau-loving Thrust
Pixies. In vitro techniques failed because their
genietic [sic] material is
incompatible so there are no hybrid Thrust Demons. DNA
sequencing has
allowed us to distinguish between many castes of Lift
Demon, Thrust Fairy
etc. For example due credit should be given to the
inelegantly named Fart
Fairies without whose bean eating and gas production,
no machine could power
itself from the earth's surface. The shy Turbine
Winder-Rounder Gnomes hide
inside those so-called engine nacelles from the public
and indulge their
serious kerosene drinking problems. Why else would the
engines be called
Gnome engines? Leading-Edge Leeries give the extra
little push that keeps
the nose up. The unfortunate tendency for RAF Harriers
to crash into the sea
has led to speculation that Harriers are equipped with
Sirens or that the
crashes resulted from an ill-advised experiment in
using Water Nymphs (these
are better suited to submarine propulsion). In any
case, only export
versions of the Harrier are likely to use Sirens, while
those for the
British domestic market use Banshees leased from the
Irish.

Thrust Pixies are adequate for civil aircraft, while
Lift Demons were good
in military applications in years past, but modern
Naval Aviation is
currently all Angel-powered. The very best ones are, of
course, Blue Angels.
This is why they report their altitude as "angels
twenty" or such. In
addition, many Navy pilots claim that black air has no
lift, which means
they can get all night in to supplement their daytime
naps between meals.
This shows that Angels and Naval Lift Demons are
strictly diurnal.
Genetically engineered, military-tolerant Thrust Pixies
may be what is
needed. Thrust Demons might also have applications in
getting Air Force
maritime patrol aircraft to stop reaching "prudent
limit of endurance" by 2
p.m. (local time) every Friday just after reporting a
"possible intruder"
submarine in the exercise area, and not be restored to
flying status until 9
a.m. Monday, thus leaving the ships to stay out over
the weekend looking for
the "intruder".

There are no Anti-Gravity Demons so a different
approach has to be taken in
this field of research. Current research into
inertia-free propulsion has
shown great promise through the use of properly
modified felines. Butter is
spread evenly over the felines back. When the creature
is tossed lightly
into the air, the third law of universal fate dictates
that it must land
butter side down. However this does not occur due to
the intervention of the
feline landing axiom (feet first). The above
conflicting forces result in a
stable hover. The subject felines have demonstrated the
ability to control
their own velocity at will. The only loose ends
delaying the full
commercialisation of this process is the matter of
persuading the felines to
(a) work in teams; (b) not lick off the butter and (c)
follow a flight plan.
As there seems to be a deficiency in feline herding
instincts, any
suggestions would be appreciated by the researchers
involved.