The wing geometry affects the wing lift and C l distributions in mostly intuitive ways. But because the section C l is the lift divided by the local chord, taper has a very different effect on the C l distribution. Changing the wing twist changes the lift and C l distributions as well. Increasing the tip incidence with respect to the root is called wash-in. Since changing the wing twist does not affect the chord distribution, the effect on lift and C l is similar.
Wing sweep produces a less intuitive change in the lift distribution of a wing.
Because the downwash velocity induced by the wing wake depends on the sweep, the lift distribution is affected. This effect can be quite large and causes problems for swept-back wings. The greater tip lift increases structural loads and can lead to stalling problems. The effect of increasing wing aspect ratio is to increase the lift at a given angle of attack as we saw from the discussion of lifting line theory. But it also changes the shape of the wing lift distribution by magnifying the effects of all other parameters.