Coanada Effect Airfoil/wing for STEM Lesson

thingiverse

This is a small airfoil I made for a STEM lesson on how planes fly. Put it on a pencil and it'll normally rest facing down. Blow over the top and it raises. But turn it upside down and blow over the other side and it won't raise. This is because, contrary to popular belief, most of the lift on a wing is produced by the Coanada effect - the curved surface deflecting the airflow downward. Bernoulli's principle does produce a pressure gradient that aids in lift, but no one actually knows 100% for sure why that pressure gradient exists. For instance, many planes have symmetric airfoils. And if you fly a plane upside down, the pressure is still lower on the top surface of the wing as long as the angle of attack is large enough. This is also meant to be a fast single-line print so that a lot of these can be made quickly. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-one-can-explain-why-planes-stay-in-the-air/