There really isn't much intermediate space between "An airfoil disturbs the air in such a way that the pressure on top is lower than the pressure on the bottom" and potential flow calculations...
Note that potential flow calculations are significantly oversimplified; they work only for thin airfoils at low angles of attack (so they will correctly model basic flight, but not anything beyond that)[1].
So lets say you get an intuition of flow separation and turbulance on a 2D cross-section (which is already a bit of a stretch) you now still can't explain how a delta wing works.
Really smart people who know a lot about how flight works and have expensive computers still need to test their ideas in wind tunnels.
Note that potential flow calculations are significantly oversimplified; they work only for thin airfoils at low angles of attack (so they will correctly model basic flight, but not anything beyond that)[1].
So lets say you get an intuition of flow separation and turbulance on a 2D cross-section (which is already a bit of a stretch) you now still can't explain how a delta wing works.
Really smart people who know a lot about how flight works and have expensive computers still need to test their ideas in wind tunnels.
[1] Here's an example of something that actually happens, but isn't predicted correcty by potential flow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#mediaviewer/File:F...