Author Topic: would a plane take off if..  (Read 2460 times)

Offline bagrat

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #15 on: January 07, 2010, 08:16:20 PM »
now that thats outta the way, i was flippin thru channels and on MTV (most retarded channel ever) some gangster chick keeps talkin trash insulting a drunk guy (acting like she was gonna do somethin :rolleyes:) and gets punched in the face. now im not for hitting girls but that made me laugh.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2010, 08:19:24 PM by bagrat »
Last post by bagrat - The last thing you'll see before your thread dies since 2005.

Offline Flench

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #16 on: January 07, 2010, 08:30:50 PM »
imagine a plane is sat on the beginning of a massive conveyor belt/travelator type arrangement, as wide and as long as a runway, and intends to take off. The conveyer belt is designed to exactly match the speed of the wheels at any given time, moving in the opposite direction of rotation.
There is no wind.

Can the plane take off?

? :noid
You know , if one could build a runway like this it would save a lot of ground space , lol .
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Offline Shuffler

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #17 on: January 07, 2010, 08:51:12 PM »
You know , if one could build a runway like this it would save a lot of ground space , lol .

No because it would still need to be as long as any runway now.
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Offline Flench

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #18 on: January 07, 2010, 09:02:26 PM »
Oh , I understand now .Had to re-think that one ..
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Offline Ruler2

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #19 on: January 07, 2010, 09:03:26 PM »
It flies.  It doesn't accelerate because of the wheels, they just roll.  The prop/jet thrust accelerates the aircraft through the air and that isn't affected by any treadmill contraption.  All the treadmill would do is make the wheels spin faster as it took off.

Karnak, The reason planes have wheels and roll to take off is to get air moving over the wings at speeds high enough to create enough lift to life the planes off the ground, if the plane was not moving, it could not get wind moving over its wings fast enough.

Offline Serenity

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #20 on: January 07, 2010, 09:11:06 PM »
Karnak, The reason planes have wheels and roll to take off is to get air moving over the wings at speeds high enough to create enough lift to life the planes off the ground, if the plane was not moving, it could not get wind moving over its wings fast enough.

What he is saying is that the force is acting on the air, not the treadmill, therefore the speed of the wheels is irrelevant, it is the speed of the air that matters.

Offline SlapShot

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #21 on: January 07, 2010, 09:36:42 PM »
No. No Airlift, if your going 70mph but no were, there is no air moving on the wings, thus not able to lift.

How can you be going 70 mph and not going no w(h)ere ? ... Why would you be going no w(h)ere ? ... What is preventing you from moving forward and obtaining lift ?
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Offline SlapShot

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #22 on: January 07, 2010, 09:38:10 PM »
Karnak, The reason planes have wheels and roll to take off is to get air moving over the wings at speeds high enough to create enough lift to life the planes off the ground, if the plane was not moving, it could not get wind moving over its wings fast enough.

And in this scenario, what is preventing the plane from moving forward ? ... think about it.
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Offline 1701E

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #23 on: January 07, 2010, 09:38:39 PM »
For anyone confused think of it this way:

Boeing 747 (4x Jet engines) push the plane forward.  The tires are there to make the trip between 'Stop' and 'airborne' smooth.  The plane could take off with those tires in a dead stopped position, but it would be a very bad ride and would defeat the purpose of having tires on the thing.  Since the Jet engines are pushing the plane those tires even in a 'Locked' position would just make the trip bumpy and maybe take longer, the tires if matched in speed with a belt system would basically look like they were standing still, unless the belt is matching the plane speed not the tire RPMs.

One test would be, Get a high-powered (and light) fan and put it on wheels, find a way to prevent the wheels from spinning.  The fan should still move due to getting it's power from pushing air, not from the spinning of tires like a car does (lock those tires and you'll have a face full of dashboard).

Then again, I'm likely just confusing myself! :D
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Offline SlapShot

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #24 on: January 07, 2010, 09:47:37 PM »
UGH ...

For the confused ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YORCk1BN7QY&NR=1

Even the pilot thought that he wouldn't take off ... :rolleyes:
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Offline Saxman

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #25 on: January 07, 2010, 09:48:48 PM »
Karnak, The reason planes have wheels and roll to take off is to get air moving over the wings at speeds high enough to create enough lift to life the planes off the ground, if the plane was not moving, it could not get wind moving over its wings fast enough.

Check out 15 seconds in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ul_5DtMLhc

There's not enough room for the plane to take off, but see how it still moves FORWARD off the end of the treadmill? Later in the video they do a full-scale test as well.

For the life of me I just can NOT understand how difficult a concept this is for people to wrap their skulls around.

A car on a treadmill won't move forward because its forward acceleration is driven BY its wheels, which there's a drive train and transmission that control how fast they turn. A plane's wheels are COMPLETELY free spinning, and it receives forward acceleration via thrust from its prop or jet engine. The wheels are there for support on the ground ONLY. It'd be like putting the car in neutral. Which, btw, they also did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S377HwOthjo

The conveyor belt can NOT stop the engine from producing thrust. As long as it does, the plane is going to move forward REGARDLESS of how fast the treadmill is moving. Jamie could have used a frelling ROCKET SLED to drive the conveyor belt and the plane would have taken off within the same amount of runway.
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Offline eagl

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #26 on: January 07, 2010, 09:51:06 PM »
It can't fly, because it can't move forward.  As soon as the plane begins to accelerate, the treadmill will instantly accelerate to a nearly infinite speed.  Since rolling resistance will keep increasing as the treadmill increases in speed, the plane simply can't get moving through the air because the rolling resistance will increase to exactly counteract the engine thrust.  If the rolling resistance isn't strong enough, the plane will start to creep forward, causing the treadmill to speed up, which will increase the rolling resistance which will halt the plane again.

There is only one exception, and it is the same thing that makes modern hard drives work...  A moving surface will create a little bit of wind over that surface.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/op/heads/op_Height.htm

So the treadmill itself will create a little layer of moving air along the surface.  This is how computer hard drive read/write heads "fly" on the very thin layer of air on the top of the spinning hard drive discs, and why it is a really bad idea to try to completely seal a computer hard drive or run it in a vacuum.  Assuming that the wheels don't explode from the nearly infinite rotation speed or the bearings don't give out, at some speed (very very fast), the treadmill itself would probably create enough wind to lift the plane up off of the treadmill, at which point the rolling resistance on the landing gear would drop to zero, and the plane would begin to move forward.  It's a bit like if a stationary plane was hit with a gust of wind...  It would essentially leap up and backwards relative to the ground unless the engine was strong enough to accelerate it forward through the air and assuming the wind didn't stop.

But you have to assume a whole lot of things that simply can't happen, primarily that the landing gear, wheels, bearings, etc. would survive the treadmill's acceleration to a near-infinite speed, as required by how the original question is stated.  That simply can't ever be tested in full scale.

It would be possible to test a subscale model at lower speeds though... Just slowly increase both the engine thrust and treadmill speed so that the drag created by the rolling resistance always equals the thrust of the engine.  At some point, the rolling resistance will be as great as the engine's maximum thrust, and there will be an equilibrium point where the plane doesn't move because the thrust of the engine at max power is exactly counteracted by the wheel drag from the treadmill.  In a full-scale test, I'm not sure the rolling resistance would ever be enough without the treadmill either moving far faster than physically possible using known materials, or if the wind effect caused by the treadmill itself would create enough airflow over the wings to allow the plane to lift off of the treadmill.

I used to know what that wind effect was called, but I can't remember it and I'm apparently not smart enough to google it correctly either.
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Offline SlapShot

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #27 on: January 07, 2010, 09:52:21 PM »
the tires if matched in speed with a belt system would basically look like they were standing still, unless the belt is matching the plane speed not the tire RPMs.

The wheels would always move in the opposite direction of the moving conveyor belt, at the speed of the conveyor belt, until the wheels had no more contact with the conveyor belt ... the wheels are "free wheeling" on their axle.
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Offline Saxman

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #28 on: January 07, 2010, 09:54:47 PM »
I vote Skuzzy just lock this thing now, because it's only going to get nasty from here.

It doesn't matter HOW much proof you give people this myth is a crock. They're not going to accept anything but their own narrow view of the mechanics involved.
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Offline SlapShot

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Re: would a plane take off if..
« Reply #29 on: January 07, 2010, 09:59:34 PM »
Since rolling resistance will keep increasing as the treadmill increases in speed, the plane simply can't get moving through the air because the rolling resistance will increase to exactly counteract the engine thrust.  If the rolling resistance isn't strong enough, the plane will start to creep forward, causing the treadmill to speed up, which will increase the rolling resistance which will halt the plane again.

The rolling resistance on a free-wheeling axle would not become a factor soon enough to prevent eventual rotation.
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