I really can't believe this argument is still going on. I went shooting with some friends, went to the casino and won $400 playing black jack and celebrated my wife's birthday since this was at 18 pages.

I worked on aircraft for 1 1/2 years and can tell you with absolute certainty that the plane in this scenario would develop forward movement in relation to the air even if the conveyor belt moved at an infinite speed. The drag caused by the wheels could never overcome the forward thrust of the engines if they were capable of turning. The only way to keep the plane from taking off would be to attach it to something static or the conveyor belt itself if the wheels are not locked. Oddly enough, a car would stay in one spot in this same scenario, but then the car doesn't have an external motive force like a prop. You must think of it in these terms, the plane doesn't pull itself along the runway, it pulls itself through the air, and it just appears to move along the runway. If the plane wouldn't move then a lot of bush pilots would have a hell of a hard time taking off upstream off of rivers, but they usually do it that way unless there is a severe tailwind.(Easier to steer with the rudders on the floats upstream.)

Now if the bush pilot throttles back so that the reistance to the floats was the same as the forward thrust of the engine they would stand still in relation to the river, but even if the river(conveyor belt)were moving at an infinite speed it couldn't cause enough resistance to stop the plane from moving forward once the floats were on plane.

Madman's argument would be valid if the plane never moved in relation to the air around it, but the plane would move in relation to the air no matter how fast the conveyor belt runs. The wheels would just spin up to match the conveyor belt speed until the plane left the ground while moving forward in relation to the air around it.

If you still think the plane won't take off, PM me and I'll give you my phone number and we can discuss it. Please don't post any more arguments against it here. I think you're smarter than this one thread is making you look. Rinky can post anything he wants, I don't agree with anything he ever posts anyway. wink
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"The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right."
Mark Twain