Simple drone physics and more …

This piece describes the simple physics for hovering. For flight, the logic is simple too: big light wings generate more lift. The people-powered planes have enormous, very light wings to translate the relatively minimal rotation of a propellor spun by a person turning pedals into lift. I’m posting because it amuses me that lift is not, shall I say, easily understood by everyone: air passes over and under a wing and the curve of the wing means the air goes over more distance in the same time, so more distance means less air over any part of that distance, and that air has weight, so when the amount of weight ‘removed’ exceeds the weight of the airplane, it lifts up into that space. This kind of basic understanding of motion is, IMO, not taught well in school. Example: a big baseball pitcher has a longer lever, meaning arm, and the end of that arm extends further out than a shorter-armed pitcher, so if you move both long and short arms at the same speed, the hand at the end of the longer arm covers more distance in the same amount of time, which means it goes faster, which means it throws the ball harder at the equivalent arm speed. Big pitchers can throw harder with less effort and/or stress on the body. That potentially also gives greater control because it might be easier to control a motion done at a slower speed, but I’m doubtful about that in the reality of sports. I extend this to punching, that if you cock your hand and/or arm, you can add distance your hand travels in the same amount of time that an uncocked hand or arm does, and more distance traveled in the same time means greater speed, which means a harder punch or one that gets through the defense better. It also extends to snapping your wrist throwing a ball or swinging a golf club: you’ve built up a certain amount of speed in your motion and now you generate extra speed by adding the extra distance of your wrist snap to that motion. If you can concentrate that acceleration near but not at the point of impact, then you ideally hit as you are approaching the maximum speed. This is why people talk about twisting the hand at the end of a punch: it’s supposed to reference that added distance occurring within the movement, but unfortunately it’s taught often as a twist at the end and is typically wasted. If you look at old pictures of boxers, they stood with arms cocked – and legs splayed, which is another topic. It’s more obvious with bare-knuckle boxers but good fighters also tend to cock because they recognize that this position is the same as being loaded and ready to explode.