Flight Without Wings: Lift Comes in Many Forms

Olympic ski jumpers are all tip and no wing, so how do they do it?

Peter Garrison

Wednesday, May 20, 2026 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

Flight time may possibly be more affected by the rate at which ski jumpers slow down than by the rate at which they lose height. [Credit: U.S. Ski & Snowboard]

Key Takeaways:

The traditional airfoil explanation (Bernoulli's principle) for lift is inaccurate for ski jumpers, as their lack of wingspan results in complex, three-dimensional airflow unlike that over an airplane wing.
Ski jumpers generate lift primarily through impact pressure on their undersides and contributions from their V-shaped skis, with the lift and drag forces being approximately equal.
Significant improvements in ski jumping distance have come from jumper innovations in posture and technique, such as the V-stance, rather than solely from scientific aerodynamic studies.
The article illustrates that lift encompasses various aerodynamic phenomena, not just the classic airfoil mechanism, as evidenced by ski jumpers and diverse "flying" creatures.

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NBC accompanied its coverage of the ski jumping events at the Winter Olympics with a graphic showing, in profile view, a schematic ski jumper prone over their skis, with a row of bold arrows marching along a curved path above them and a second row passing in a straight line below.

It was the classic explanation of an airfoil—curved top, flat bottom, air goes faster over the top, Bernoulli, etc. It might have been cribbed from a high school physics textbook.