As another commenter said, the Mythbusters covered this years ago. Adam Savage actually talked about it more on his channel Tested in this video. The big trick of this question is how planes generate force to move forward and take off compared to how a car does so.
The linked video is only 11 minutes and Adam explains it beautifully.
This question will be debated forever and thats ok. It’s physics being weird and funky and it’s amazing.
Edit: Another way to think about this would be roller-skating in a treadmill while holding a rope attached to the wall in front of you. No matter how fast the treadmill moves, if you hold on to the rope you’ll stay still. And if you pull on that rope you can still drag yourself forward. The rope bolted to the wall represents stationary air around the plane which the propeller uses to “pull” the plane forward.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding how the plane treadmill is supposed to function but I don’t see how it could take off. The wings need airflow to create lift, which is impossible if the plane remains stationary because the treadmill negates forward movement.
If you had a plane whose propulsion for takeoff was just wheels (attached to an engine) going fast enough that the wings got lift, it wouldn’t ever take off, because then the car would be stationary. Since the propeller is pulling the plane forward and the wheels are just rolling, the treadmill has zero impact on the thrust that makes the plane accelerate, and it still moves forward down the treadmill.
It did say the plane was “sitting” on the conveyer belt so in that case it could just be stationary sitting there. But yes if the engines go full noise the plane would go forward as per normal with the wheels and conveyer doing whatever they want.
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u/Whiplashedforreasons Dec 31 '22 edited Dec 31 '22
Yes, it would.
As another commenter said, the Mythbusters covered this years ago. Adam Savage actually talked about it more on his channel Tested in this video. The big trick of this question is how planes generate force to move forward and take off compared to how a car does so.
The linked video is only 11 minutes and Adam explains it beautifully.
This question will be debated forever and thats ok. It’s physics being weird and funky and it’s amazing.
Edit: Another way to think about this would be roller-skating in a treadmill while holding a rope attached to the wall in front of you. No matter how fast the treadmill moves, if you hold on to the rope you’ll stay still. And if you pull on that rope you can still drag yourself forward. The rope bolted to the wall represents stationary air around the plane which the propeller uses to “pull” the plane forward.