Quote:
Originally Posted by Saint Marcos
Well frankly, I don't mean sitting & not running. I simply mean that I can concieve of a treadmill that will keep the plane motionless -- In fact, unwittingly, the person on the video with the remote controlled airplane on the conveyor belt showed us, quite clearly, that he was able to keep the plane motionless by the conveyor belt (he simply, afterward, increased the thrust on the plane to make it overtake the treadmill and take-off).
What if that remote plane didn't have any more room left in the throttle? It would have sat on that treadmill, struggling to take off until the batteries ran down. Yet, it easily could have had enough juice to allow it to take off on a normal runway (we'll never really know the answer to that).
Since I see that a plane can indeed be made to hold still on a conveyor belt, the thrust behind it isn't what makes it take off. Its the point where it overcomes the treadmill & moves forward (creating lift) where it actually takes off.
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straws. you are grasping at straws.
The lighter it is, the more of a factor friction becomes. Making the argument that the plane has only just enough power to just barely get off the ground under nominal conditions, and the treadmill being enough to tip the scale because of the fractional amount of resistance the wheels provide, assuming no air movement, etc, you are creating absurd variables and adding them into a simple equation, needlessly.
Go sleep well tonight, yes, it is a fact that a treadmill does impart some tiny amount of friction, in 99.9999999999999999% of all cases, it doesn't matter. Planes have engines powerful enough in real life to overcome infinitesimally minute variables, but in the case of your imaginary argument, it is possible that they may not. You may as well start throwing in gravity variables, as well, the higher the gravity, the more friction you will get in the wheel bearings.
/rolls eyes