Originally Posted by
heywoodjablowme
thnk running on treadmill.....if you don't go faster than the treadmill is going in the opposite direction, you effectively go NOWHERE
same thing for the plane...no matter how much thrust the jet engine is creating pushing the jet forward, if the conveyor moves it back at the same rate, it can't generate lift to take off
the conveyor belt doesn't move the plane backwards it only moves the tires/wheels which are independant of thrust. There fore if the conveyor belt was the same length as a runway you could have the conveyer belt going a billion miles an hour in reverse and the plane would still have a forward thrust since it isn't derived from the wheels. The plane would move forward and the wheels would merely spin like a slut in the wrong direction. The wheels on a plane are just there so that the plane isnt sitting on the ground. If you took the wheels off and put the plane on a big ass suspended wire the plane would still propel forward.