The Airfoil Wars: flat plate wings camber and thickness

Aircraft design is recursive: everything affects and impacts everything else, from materials weight and strength to airframe architecture to in-flight aerodynamics. Here, we offer a simplest introduction to a few related airfoil concepts in isolation. For a discussion of more advanced concepts such as the variety of airfoil shapes, laminar or turbulent air flow, turbulators, separation and separation bubbles, etc., see Martin Simons’ Model Aircraft Aerodynamics, 5th Edition. If a flat plate is inclined at...