[impossiblefork]

Yes, that is indeed the 'we', but I think more people are knowledgeable than is obvious.

I'm not an aerodynamicist, and I know about those guys, so they can't be infinitely obscure. I imagine every French person knows about Bleriot at least.

[decimalenough]

I'm an avgeek with a MSc in engineering. I vaguely recall the name Bleriot from physics, although I have no clue what he actually did. I have never even heard the names Busemann, Prandtl, or Whitcomb.

[impossiblefork]

I find this super surprising, because even I who don't do aerodynamics I still know about thes guys.

Bleriot was a french aviation pioneer and not a physicist. He built the first monoplane. Busemann was an aerodynamicist who invented wing sweep and also did important work on supersonic flight. Prandtl is known for research on lift distribution over wings, wingtip vortices, induced drag and he basically invented much of the theory about wings. Whitcomb gave his name to the Whitcomb area rule, although Otto Frenzl had come up with it earlier during WWII.

[Scarblac]

What is wing sweep, what is induced drag, what is the area rule?

[impossiblefork]

Airliners don't have the wings going straight out, instead being swept back. You can also sweep them forward to get the same effect, but you will rarely want to do that due to other problems. This means that the cross sectional area of the aircraft varies less along the length and reduces wave drag.

If there's no lift there's no pressure different between the upper side of the wing and the lower side of the wing. But if there's lift there's higher pressure on the bottom and lower on top, so air wants to flow around the wing, from bottom to top, producing a wingtip vortex. This flow creates drag, and this drag is called lift-induced drag or just 'induced drag'.

The area rule is about minimizing wave drag by keeping the cross sectional area of different parts of the aircraft close to the cross sectional area of the corresponding cross-section of a minimal drag body. It leads to wing sweep and certain fuselage shapes.