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Will this plane fly??

KemicalBurn said:
Without friction the whole thing is redundant, pointless, and a waste of time discussing :\
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Not particularly. It was argued it wouldn't move even in the case of no friction in the wheels, so even the frictionless case can confuse people.

Just arbitrarily picking the situation to have certain perfect qualities, and certain physical qualities isn't very good either, because you then tune the question to give the answer you want. It should be completely physical or completely idealised.

But then, the problem with saying "Okay, lets put in physical restraints" is you no longer have a conceptual problem, but an engineering one. The belt isn't perfect, but it has friction. Then you just need to be able to build a belt capable of moving several hundred miles an hour (most hotels or shopping centres have trouble getting them to move at 2 miles an hour!). But then if you could build a really powerful set of engines, you could make a plane better than the conveyor belt. It becomes a matter of "The plane will fly if the engineering crew building the plane are good enough to beat the engineering crew building the conveyor belt."

Bit of a crappy answer when you put in all physical constraints.
 
Wouldn't the whole roller blade theory be incorrect because when you pull on the bar you are in fact increasing the speed of the wheels over the speed of the treadmill. I just cannot see how this question can look past the friction. When the roller blade wheels speed up from pulling yourself forward, so does the treadmill. Since you are already using x amount of force to hold yourself in position, you would never be able to pull enough to counter the friction pulling you backwards.

When you use the treadmill example you are neglecting the fact that the treadmill speed is also increasing. Also the video someone posted earlier with the fan is completely useless. There is no way someone pulling on something can match exactly the same amount of force.
 
Think of it this way. If you spun the wheels of a jet plane flying at 500mph backwards, would it slow down?
 
It will not fly. Period.
No air movement means no lift = no fly
The plane would need forward momentum to fly.
 
Crimson Fury said:
The plane would need forward momentum to fly.
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Wow! My god! Why didn't I think of one of the most basic and obvious laws of the universe! :o 8o





Oh wait, I did! Read the thread next time!
 
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