Talk:Leading edge

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Queries[edit]

According to NASA the Columbia shuttle crash didn't really have anything to do with the incident at take-off.According to Ron Dittemore at NASA the piece that fell off was too light and its velocity was too slow to make any substantial damage to the shuttle. This is what i read in a swedish article in tabloidpaper Aftonbladet, one of the biggest magazines in Sweden, dated 2003-02-12. Considering this info I think the part about the shuttle should be deleted from this article.

With best regards jakub

You bring up a good point - my initial reason for modifying the definition you had posted was to capture the concept that, from an aerodynamic (as opposed to aircraft structures) point of view, the leading edge actually changes with angle of attack, as the air meets a different part of the wing. In fact when a wing is experiencing a tailslide, from the point of view of lift-generation, the trailing edge is now the leading edge and the resulting lift-distribution (or lack thereof) will reflect that. I am not sure that we need to get into that much detail in a short article that is really a bridge to the various devices that can be installed on a LE. If you prefer your original definition then please do restore it!

A

01 June 2005

ok... i did my best to integrate both our definitions, please, check if it can be improved yet. thank you & regards, Blueshade 11:05, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That new version looks pretty good, I think! Thanks for the consult on it!

A

03 june 2005

i dare say my initial definition, namely:

  Leading edge is a line connecting the forward-most points of wing's profiles.

was a bit more strict and less casual (and therefore, probably more correct) than the present

  The Leading edge is that part of the wing that, when it is in motion, first contacts the air.

I can think of a situation (e.g. a plane moving backwards after a vertical-climb-induced stall) when it's simply wrong... of course it's generally correct, but imho, is should not be used as a _definition_...

best regards, Blueshade 11:33, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"The leading edge of a wing can be perpendicular to the air..." Well, no, it can't, because air is all around the wing. This sentence obviously means that, in plan view, the leading edge meets the airflow perpendicular (and similarly for the rest of the paragraph), so I am changing air to airflow. Emeraude 14:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

August 2011 edit[edit]

I've added a cited alternative definition which focusses on the structure rather than the transient airflow, and done something similar further down on leading edge sweep. It's not usual to think of leading edge sweep as yaw dependent, though there may be times when such an effective sweep is a handy concept (?). I've also corrected the statement that wing sweep is that of the leading edge, with a cite. Also added some related terms (cited). I was not convinced this was the place for details of the Columbia crash and have trimmed that para to the essentials. It still needs a cite or two.TSRL (talk) 09:24, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It looks good! - Ahunt (talk) 12:38, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]