prodigy
December 25, 2006, 11:45am
138
Kyle man, they are assuming that the length of the conveyer is long enough so that the plane would have enough room to take off as it normally needs on paved surface or whatever.
So basically, the conveyer will match the planes speed, but it wont affect the speed of the plane because the wheels are spinning freely, meaning that the conveyer have ABSOLUTELY no affect on the plane’s movement whatsoever. This means that all the plane has to do is what it normally does, use it’s thrust from the turbines to move forward as if it were on normal ground, it needs no more power and no less movement, it is as if it were on normal ground taking off.
Some people, including myself at first, were thinking that the plane would have to use more effort to go forward because of the conveyer moving the wheels in the other direction, this is infact because everyone is so focused on the issue of the wheels, and most people thought they were not free of the planes movement… I hope that sort of puts it into layman’s terms, some of those physics terms before scared me haha!
Another question, if the plane’s wheels are infact independant of the plane then when the plane is aligning itself for take off, moving slowly around the airfield; whats moving it, tiny amounts of thrust or something?
BINGO!!!
It does not matter how fast the treadmill goes, the plane will still move across it, to the end, and take off, because the plane’s thrust is entirely independent of the wheels. Its method of locomotion has nothing to do with the treadmill or the wheels thereon, so they do not effect the plane in any way. It will take off.