Hacker News Reader

Those crazy bumblebees

Stick your hand out the car window doing 60, and tilt it back. That's how they stay up there!

I think this just proves that it happens, not why it happens. Also the last flight I took proved that it happens.

Planes fly because of climate change.

Which causes us to need more climate change as we get more flights. Sad but true.

pure science right there

My understanding is that planes don't fly directly upside down, and they angle the wing slightly to make a kinda-sorta-airfoil.

How helicopters can turn directly upside down, and fly that way[1], without reversing the direction of their props, that I don't get. (Thinking about it now, I think it turns from a helicopter to a hovercraft? Eg, this is a ground effect?)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdDESYBdeSE

Also, tangentially, Magnus effect planes are a thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6geOms33Dk

Helicopter rotor blades can vary their angle of attack.

You mean the soul of the plane? The grand spirit of buoyancy?

Randall Munroe finally explained it: https://xkcd.com/2678