drag vs lift area

[ciurpita]

it makes sense that the lift is dependent on the area of the wing looking down from the top since the lift is perpendicular to that surface. but wouldn't it make sense that the parasitic drag is dependent on the frontal area of the wing? this is more or less the airfoil thickness.

the drag coefficient of my car is 0.39. i think the drag is calculated based on the frontal area of the car, its' height vs width, not the width vs the length.

[biber]

Drag (absolute) on a thin wing is depending big deal on the wetted surface, thus is pretty much tied to the area of the wings top view.
The thickeness does not need to have the same impact on the drag.
Anyway, it's less complicated to relate it all to one specific area than to use two difernt ones.

biber

[ciurpita]

i understand the value of following conventions, but in this case is it intuitive? if it's the wetted surface, shouldn't both top and bottom surfaces be considered?

[biber]

The simplification goes even further, if you change the flap setting of e.g. a fowlerflap and change the surface area, it is still the conventional way to use the top view area of the clean wing as the reference area.
That's really all just conventions to make handling more easy.
Intuition may differ from one to another, so you can't make it right to everyone, anyway.

If you ask me, electricity is much more inconsistent with intuition, as the technically positve is physically the lack of charged particles (electrons).

biber