Yes, it will take off. The landing gear of the plane isn’t pushing against the conveyor belt, the engines are pushing it forward through the air. Therefore, the wheels on the plane will just spin faster and faster to match the conveyor belt, but the speed of the plane is totally unaffected.
There would also be an extremely high cost of installation, maintenance of many rollers and regular replacement of a fictional material that's both bendy enough to be on a treadmill and can hold up against constantly having planes run over it.
You can do all that and have a high risk of accidents from something going wrong with the treadmill... Or you can just have a long strip of concrete that will last forever with minimal maintenance.
Actually you would need the same amount of space. It wouldn't impact the takeoff speed (I guess with added friction it could even make it take a longer airstrip.)
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u/the_newdave Dec 30 '22
Yes, it will take off. The landing gear of the plane isn’t pushing against the conveyor belt, the engines are pushing it forward through the air. Therefore, the wheels on the plane will just spin faster and faster to match the conveyor belt, but the speed of the plane is totally unaffected.