Originally Posted by DakarM
Umm you are over analyzing man. I know what the question is. You are assuming that the belt can't while when I read it, it is saying it will.
Insteads of using speed like you're doing use distance. as soon as the plane moves 1inch the belt will return the plane to it's original position. The belt system will continue to do so no matter how fast the plane tries to accelerate.
That is what the question is saying no?
My whole arguement is that the motion of the belt will only spin the airplane's wheels forward, but it wont move the airplane backward.
Originally Posted by brtecson
here's a way of explaining it:
put a hot wheels toy car on top of a large piece of paper. snatch the pull the piece of paper horizontally from under the hot wheels (swiftly)... The distance traveled of the hot wheels car is less than the distance traveled of the paper. If you pull it fast enough, the car might not move at all. Why? Because the car isn't attached to the paper. The cars tendency to move with the paper is caused by the resistance coefficient in the wheels at whatever speed the paper is pulled.
So yes, the airplane would accelerate and lift off, but at a lesser rate due to the resistance in the wheel bearings of the airplane.
^that's my analogy that explains why the conveyors movement will not move the airplane.