Quote:
Originally posted by MattyX:
Just because it's coming from a pilot, doesn't mean it's right. I'm an air traffic controller, I tell pilots what to do all day, but that doesn't mean a damn. Go ahead and try the balsa-plane-with-a-rubber-band-powered-prop trick on the treadmill at your local gym. See if it works, then try to figure it out.

Of course, it's been done.
Quote:
It was an interesting argument, but as things progressed, more rational heads prevailed, pointing out that the airplanes do not apply their thrust via their wheels, so the conveyor belt is irrelevant to whether the airplane will takeoff. One guy even got one of those rubber band powered wood and plastic airplane that sell for about a buck, put it on the treadmill someone foolishly donated to the Lounge years ago, thinking that pilots might actually exercise. He wound up the rubber band, set the treadmill to be level, and at its highest speed. Then he simultaneously set the airplane on the treadmill and let the prop start to turn. It took off without moving the slightest bit backwards.
You've read the whole thread, right?
That rubber band plane has almost no weight. It's wheels obviously moved faster than the treadmill.

If the jet is weightless, all bets are off...then yes, it could take off.
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"Nature has constituted utility to man the standard and test of virtue. Men living in different countries, under different circumstances, different habits and regimens, may have different utilities; the same act, therefore, may be useful and consequently virtuous in one country which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced" - Thomas Jefferson, moral relativist