''
``Well,'' eagerly replied the Lift and the Thrust, ``let's
be friends. Do tell us what we can do to help you to overcome
Gravity and Drift with the least possible Power. That
obviously seems the game to play, for more Power means
heavier engines, and that in a way plays into the hands of
our enemy, Gravity, besides necessitating a larger Surface
or Angle to lift the Weight, and that increases the Drift.''
``Very well,'' from Efficiency, ``I'll do my best, though
I'm so shy, and I've just had such a bad time at the Factory,
and I'm terribly afraid you'll find it awefully dry.''
``Buck up, old dear!'' This from several new-comers,
who had just appeared. ``We'll help you,'' and one of
them, so lean and long that he took up the whole height of
the lecture room, introduced himself.
``I'm the High Aspect Ratio,'' he said, ``and what we
have got to do to help this young lady is to improve the
proportion of Lift to Drift. The more Lift we can get for a
certain area of Surface, the greater the Weight the latter
can carry; and the less the Drift, then the less Thrust and
Power required to overcome it. Now it is a fact that, if
the Surface is shaped to have the greatest possible span,
i.e., distance from wing-tip to wing-tip, it then engages more
air and produces both a maximum Reaction and a better
proportion of Lift to Drift.
``That being so, we can then well afford to lose a little
Reaction by reducing the Angle of Incidence to a degree
giving a still better proportion of Lift to Drift than would
otherwise be the case; for you must understand that the
Lift-Drift Ratio depends very much upon the size of the
Angle of Incidence, which should be as small as possible
within certain limits.
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