# Do airplane wings use difference in pressure to generate lift or conservation of momentum? [duplicate]

I hope this is a physics topic. I thought it may be appropriate because of conservation of momentum. I was under the impression that lift in an airplane wing ( an airfoil ) was due to difference in pressure. However a physics video on Youtube said that it was conservation of momentum that generates lift , which did not make sense to me, I am now wondering about the validity of the video. The video author is a physicist so maybe I thought the physics section of stackexchange may be appropriate to ask. Is there some underlying physics I am not aware of? Thank you

## marked as duplicate by sammy gerbil, stafusa, Jon Custer, John Rennie newtonian-mechanics StackExchange.ready(function() { if (StackExchange.options.isMobile) return; $('.dupe-hammer-message-hover:not(.hover-bound)').each(function() { var$hover = $(this).addClass('hover-bound'),$msg = $hover.siblings('.dupe-hammer-message');$hover.hover( function() { $hover.showInfoMessage('', { messageElement:$msg.clone().show(), transient: false, position: { my: 'bottom left', at: 'top center', offsetTop: -7 }, dismissable: false, relativeToBody: true }); }, function() { StackExchange.helpers.removeMessages(); } ); }); }); Oct 15 '17 at 6:21

• There is no way to avoid using conservation of momentum, because in plain mechanics conservation of momentum and Newton's 3rd Law are the same thing. – dmckee Oct 13 '17 at 5:08
• -1. No research effort, and not clear. See related questions on this site. Why doesn't conservation of momentum make sense to you? Where is the video? You ought to provide a link, otherwise we cannot comment on what it says. – sammy gerbil Oct 14 '17 at 9:04
• I cannot give the video or the link because I tried that once and was told that was not allowed. In any event I found a number of other sources that seemed to have an explanation of what I was looking for and as it turns out conservation of momentum plays a small part after all. A good explanation of how an airplane stays in the air is a video by sixty symbols...that is not the original video I looked at that really confused me but the latter video clarified the situation. There are many many factors involved and there is also that 3-4% unknown , a complicated process. – Sedumjoy Oct 15 '17 at 14:50
• It is good practice for users to post links for reference in their questions or answers. The question or answer itself should be self-contained, and should explain (in summary) the relevant information in the link. What we disapprove of is "link only" questions or answers. – sammy gerbil Oct 17 '17 at 11:00