"Now listen carefully," I advised, "I am not sure I fully understand this, in fact I am pretty sure I don't, but I think it is important and I think it will directly affect our rotor design."
"OK," said Ben eagerly, "Read it."
"The area of low pressure created at the wingtips creates vortices."
"What are those?"
"Turbulence, swirling wind. Can you imagine what vortices off our airfoil tip might produce?" I asked.
Of course they did- drag and stall, the enemies.
"So, listen up team, aeronautic engineers design the wing so that the lift is distributed across the wing span with the lift greatest at the wing root and least at the wing tip- this is called washout, thus reducing the lift induced drag. So team, what do we need to do with our airfoil design to achieve washout?"
For a moment, both team members looked befuddled, and then like the sun suddenly pulling clear of the horizon, Ben's face lit up.
"I get it !" he cried, with delight, "We twist our wing so the angle of attack is greater at the wing root than at the tip!!! I understand!!!"
"Brilliant, Watson," I smiled settling back to smoke my celebratory, imaginary cigar.
When I was a teenager, I met a young man, the 5 year old child of one of my dad's coworkers. He was brilliant, a verified genius. We went to dinner with him, and I was entranced. I thought at the time I would never want kids, but if I had one, I thought back then, I wanted a child with that kind of mind- that zest and love for learning. Those who know me would know it is not bragging, but just stating a fact that my oldest son was all of that and more. Genius has its host of very difficult issues, but the delight and instant gobbling of hard concepts was always pure joy for me to watch and at times to guide, and while he was very young, even teach. He has been gone many years now, college then his own business far away in Boston, and I cannot express how deeply I feel his absence and how desperately I miss him. My other two kids are brilliant in their own right and wonderful and I cannot say enough about how blessed I am to have all of them.
But something about Ben struck me at that moment as so reminiscent of Anders- that almost eerie and instant grasp of very difficult concepts, and the presence of pure joy in learning. It is a rare and breathtaking quality. I almost cried.
I had fought having to teach the helicopter event. I knew nothing about aerodynamics, and would not consider myself particularly scientific. Since then, I have had a crash course in flight, and right now can throw out words like angle of incidence, angle of attack, chord, camber, Bernoulli's principle, and washout with wild abandon, and even more amazingly, understanding. It is very hard and really stretching me, but I am enjoying it. I cannot believe it, but I am! And while I may not understand the workings of God, I have an inkling that He sent me Ben to fill a void that sometimes is so painful I cannot give it words.
A mom last night was chatting with me, and said, "So you have kids that have graduated?"
"Two of them," I said.
"How was it," she asked, glancing at her oldest, a 16 year old,"When that first one left?"
"It broke my heart," I said, "But we survived. It will be hard, but you will get through it. We all do. And there are some advantages..... the food bills go down."
I could have gone on, about how sometimes they come back with wonderful, beautiful daughter in laws for me, and maybe someday grandchildren to spoil, but I stopped there. I didn't think of Ben til later, and realized that God doesn't mean for me to extend my reach only as far as my own genes have scattered. His preparation for me included a season of Anders, but the harvest He intends may be much greater than what I supposed it would be. It is funny how joy springs out of nowhere sometimes.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.