Originally posted by Golfer
I've read the stories.
The wheels are along for the ride on the airplane and again...like your example of the pull string toy cars don't apply to an airplane the way I think you hope.
How...how how how...do you overcome the thrust applied by an airplane capable of propelling itself through the air by applying a equal opposite force to the wheels?
Telling me a story about bob tom and joe taking off in formation isn't going to do it. Telling me look at a 2 second blurb of a shoe falling won't cut it either. Your examples are not what the question asks. They're fine examples for showing how a conveyor underneath some objects affects them but that isn't the question. You're solving problems that aren't applicable to the question.
The question has the conveyor matching the speed of the wheels effectively taking the wheels out of the equation. The wheels, still spinning and presumably holding together while they accelerate through the speed of light, don't don't don't don't don't don't have anything to do with the airplane allowing itself to accelerate as long as they're allowed to spin.
It doesn't matter what equal opposing force you apply to the wheels...you're cancelling out the wheels. It would work wonders if you had a car on your treadmill. Your examples are perfect for a car. You'd have to have an effect on the fluid (air) surrounding the airplane to make it not fly.
You never did answer what I asked a few pages ago...
Why or why not are you able to dyno test an airplane at your friendly neighborhood automotive engine shop? Tell me how your plan to do that and I'll start listening to you.
You can’t dyno an airplane for the same reason you can’t get electricity from a light bulb.
The wheels are not out of the equation, they are the equation. When the wheels and plane and conveyor are still, the speed matches. If they are all in the same spot where they started and are spinning, the speed matches.
If the plane moves a foot, however, its wheel moves a foot. So, the conveyor moves how far? A foot? Fine, when the conveyor moves a foot it also moves the wheel. Now the wheel has moved two feet but the conveyor has moved only one. That’s not the same distance which means its not the same speed either. So if the conveyor were to move two feet, the wheel would have moved three.
Move the plane 100 feet down the conveyor: It does not matter if the conveyor has spun 100 feet or 1,000,000 feet, the conveyor is 100 feet behind and therefore has not been traveling at the same speed!