Quote:
Originally posted by Paul H:
Quote:
Originally posted by TravelingFool:
[b]For the love of God... The plane would fly. Period.
Wow 7 pages and all we needed was you to answer it. Man that was easy.
:rolleyes:

An airplane requires wind speed (wings vs. wind), not ground speed (wheels turning on conveyor belt), to generate the lift. Turbines and props create thrust, which pushes the plane forward through the wind.

Without the conveyor belt, a plane generates speed through the wind as it moves forward, which means it ALSO generates it with respect to the ground.

Because (with the conveyor belt) everything remains stationary with respect to the wind (not the ground), your plane AIN'T taking off, no matter how fast the wheels turn.

If you think a plane can fly at 0 mph, think about this: A plane is moving at 500 MPH through the air, but suddenly (magically), you STOP it (to 0 mph) and, simultaneously, put a conveyor belt under it's wheels that is moving at 500 mph.

Do you think that plane is going to stay aloft at 0 mph windspeed but 500 mph wheel speed?[/b]
Paul, what you and so many others fail to realise is that without wind pushing the airplane itself backward at the same rate the engines push the plane forward, there will be forward motion. The airplane's engines are what are moving the airplan. NOT the wheels. You all are associating the wheels with the airplane's motion when in fact, they have nothing to do with the airplane's forward momentum. They are just moving at the rate that the engines are pulling them forward. The plane will still be pulled forward by the engines and not by the wheels.

The only way that a plane will remain stationary on the conveyor belt is if the plane was being propelled by the wheels and not the engines. The conveyor belt has no effect what-so-ever on the engines. It just moves the wheels.