There is a great deal to this subject Suspilot, glad you asked the question.....
Wait a second.
I'm a flight instructor. I'm pretty good at it. I really want to hear you explain this, because it will help establish for me your claimed expertise in yet another field.
Please do not tell me to go read about the Wright Brothers. I am far more interested in how you relate the turning of a bicycle to how an airfoil causes an aircraft to turn.
@Robrob, from a performance standpoint, I'll agree with your point. However, for this question that I am asking Patrick, the principles are the same (excluding ballistic effects of aircraft with thrust-to-weight ratios>1).
There is a great deal to this subject Suspilot, glad you asked the question.....
As a matter of fact, I do happen to be an acknowledged expert. That said, I shall give you a relatively simple answer, not to be patronizing, but as I said, there is a lot to this.
If you go to U.S. Air Force Museum just outside of Dayton, you'll find one of the Wright Brothers' bicycles. You'll also find one in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. There are 5 known to be in existence. They are actually much more functional and useful and beautiful than a Space Shuttle or an utterly non-functional Apollo Ship, a Wright Bicycle is, but that is another story I shan't go into for the time being.
At the time the first planes were built, almost all experimental builders but the Wright Brothers envisioned planes turning like a ship, with a rudder in the back. This proved to NOT be the correct airplane turning model to work with as discussed just below. The Wright Brothers built AND RODE bikes. This is why and how they knew differently about the turning issue, how to make a plane turn, how to build a plane so that it might turn effectively, without spinning out/flipping out of control. To some very significant degree, the Wrights knew how to build airplanes because as a matter of fact, they were master bicycle builders. A Wright Bicycle could go for $40, $50, depending on what one reads, a ton of money in those days.
The Wright brothers had many great insights taken from their bicycles, the most significant in my mind, expert on the subject that I am, is that they realized PLANES SHOULD TURN AS THEIR BICYCLES DID, TIPPING LEFT OR RIGHT, BANKING/LEANING. This was one of their great insights among others that came from their bikes. And so they built planes, just like their bicycles, planes designed to "lean" in order to turn, and so the planes did indeed lean and TURN!, just like a bicycle. No one had figured that part out before. The Wrights did, thanks to their familiarity with bicycles.
The Wright Brothers "wind tunnel" was a modified bicycle, their so called "bicycle apparatus". Their prop was driven by a chain to a toothed crank. I shan't go on as much as I could and would.
I am not infrequently called upon as a consultant to those making films or writing about bicycles. Usually this involves historical questions, or questions dealing with bicycle mechanism, how it is that bicycles balance and so forth. Actually, despite what one would think, bicycles do not balance by virtue of any gyroscopic effect of their wheels, or if gyroscopic effects are at play, they are a minor, minimal contribution that is so made. It is rather best perhaps to think of them, bicycles, as of all things, stilt walkers, just like stilt walkers in a circus. That is a bicycle.
I'll leave it at that, as I mentioned, Loss Leader's recommendation is a good one. Best to focus on fundamentals of Apollo rather than the bicycle thing as much as I love it.
