It goes into great lengths to show how lift is generated with symmetric airfoils or even flat planes and that the asymmetric airfoil is for efficiency and conditions.
It does not invoke any kind of magic. Even the part you quoted doesn't. Indeed they even animate a flat plane at different angles of attack showing lift.
I don't read that sentence to mean what you do. The article is indeed "looking at the forces generated by the flow of air around the aircraft's wings" and it's definitely focusing "on the cross section of those wings" which is a shape known as an "airfoil."
Later on TFA says "the shape and the orientation of the airfoil helps airplanes remain airborne" which is closer to your criticism, but still true; a shape that generates more drag or less lift in the equivalent airflow would not help airplanes remain airborne.
Maybe if TFA included a simulation of a rectilinear wing and showed how it stalled at very low angles of attack, that would improve things, but I find it to be "just fine" as an introduction to lift.
To be nitpicky: I wasn't irked by the article's title, but by the framing in the lede.
To be constructively nitpicky: a box used as a wing is absolutely an "airfoil" inasmuch as the term has any meaning. It's not the shape being "special" that makes a wing work, it's the shape that the airflow around it takes, which is to first approximation just a function of its "tilt" along its major axis relative to the flow direction. The business about shape is all just optimization, not what you want to describe if you want to know how an airplane flies.
Indeed, with sufficient thrust your wings can just be flat plates with a small angle between the plane of the plates and the direction of travel. Airfoils are first about reducing drag, second about stall speed and angles.
But airplanes are quite constrained things, if you have a bad attitude and refuse to use airfoils many planes wouldn't even get off the ground and all the rest would have abysmal performance. Sort of like how with imagination everything is a hammer, but this being technically true doesn't mean that you shouldn't really use a hammer when one is called for.
I suggest reading the article.
It goes into great lengths to show how lift is generated with symmetric airfoils or even flat planes and that the asymmetric airfoil is for efficiency and conditions.
It does not invoke any kind of magic. Even the part you quoted doesn't. Indeed they even animate a flat plane at different angles of attack showing lift.
I don't read that sentence to mean what you do. The article is indeed "looking at the forces generated by the flow of air around the aircraft's wings" and it's definitely focusing "on the cross section of those wings" which is a shape known as an "airfoil."
Later on TFA says "the shape and the orientation of the airfoil helps airplanes remain airborne" which is closer to your criticism, but still true; a shape that generates more drag or less lift in the equivalent airflow would not help airplanes remain airborne.
Maybe if TFA included a simulation of a rectilinear wing and showed how it stalled at very low angles of attack, that would improve things, but I find it to be "just fine" as an introduction to lift.
iirc the article is called “Airfoil”, not “Rectilinear Box”.
To be nitpicky: I wasn't irked by the article's title, but by the framing in the lede.
To be constructively nitpicky: a box used as a wing is absolutely an "airfoil" inasmuch as the term has any meaning. It's not the shape being "special" that makes a wing work, it's the shape that the airflow around it takes, which is to first approximation just a function of its "tilt" along its major axis relative to the flow direction. The business about shape is all just optimization, not what you want to describe if you want to know how an airplane flies.
Very amusing, enjoyed the constructive nitpick!
Indeed, with sufficient thrust your wings can just be flat plates with a small angle between the plane of the plates and the direction of travel. Airfoils are first about reducing drag, second about stall speed and angles.
But airplanes are quite constrained things, if you have a bad attitude and refuse to use airfoils many planes wouldn't even get off the ground and all the rest would have abysmal performance. Sort of like how with imagination everything is a hammer, but this being technically true doesn't mean that you shouldn't really use a hammer when one is called for.