Physics Question

[Solarian]

@louis110

ok so i must admit defeat on this one…after lying down in my bed and playing with my toy planes, i failed to observe one very obvious property of the situation. the belt and the motion of the plane spin the wheels in the same direction!
-Yup.
so the tangential velocity of the wheels is actually doubled instead of cancelling out.
-Yup.
this is of course based on the assumption the system is TOTALLY frictionless and all rotational inertia is overcome.
-Yup.
if the belt were moving in the same direction as the plane then my argument would be valid, but that’s just not the case here.
-WRONG! The wheels would still freewheel, the plane would still do it’s own thing. You need to consider a frame of reference that is relative to the air, not to the belt. There will be an unbalanced force on the plane (thrust) propelling it forward. If there is no friction, then you’re off, if there is friction you slow down a tiny bit due to the friction, but you’re still off.

i still stand by my theory in that the speed of the wheels is affected by the thrust created. though the systems are independent of each other, the motion caused by thrust along the ground can be also expressed by the tangential motion of the wheels.
-True, but the wheel speed doesn’t matter. It’s completely irrelevant.

There are dashes before all of my replies