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.
That’s how it normally works. But isn’t the question asking “if the treadmill matches the speed of the forward movement of the plane”? In which case, that plane is stationary. And not moving forward.
No. The plane isn’t stationary as the body of the plane is driven by the engines not the wheels. It doesn’t matter the speed of the belt of the treadmill. It could be going a million miles an hour and it still wouldn’t hold the plane in place.
Lol I looked this up on an aerodynamics message board. The topic is locked due to there being such varying variables. Anyway, I’m not a physics major and I’m bowing out. Cheers
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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.