Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Seahawk
Where am I going wrong? if the treadmill moves at the backwards at the same speed the plane moves forward, I'm seeing the plane able to take off, although the wheels will be spinning twice as fast as non treadmill take off. I dunno, maybe I'm not understanding the question properly..
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The plane wheels can never go faster than the treadmill because the original question said that the treadmill is designed to ALWAYS go as fast as the plane's wheels. Because of that statement we have to assume that as the plane accelerates and starts to gain on the treadmill, some control makes the treadmill accelerate and convert the plane's incremental thrust into ROTATIONAL acceleration and momentum in the wheels. By the way the problem is defined, the plane can never convert thrust into a higher incremental wheel speed versus the treadmill. THis has no basis in reality, and therefore cannot be proved by a simple experiment.
(At least it would require very complicated machinery to balance a model plane's thrust and treadmill acceleration)