Treadmill Exercise Machines and Equipment
Plane vs. Treadmill Solved II
Ok, since some people were confused by the tape to stop it the plane from falling off, I run the plane at a low throttle to match rolling friction w/ thrust. I then accelerate the treadmill to almost 10 MPH w/o changing the throttle position. Then I throttle it up to prove that the plane can move at the high treadmill speed. The treadmill does not affect the airplane’s performance; this shows that no matter what the treadmill does (accelerate the same as the plane, faster than the plane, or less than the plane) the plane will still move forward. ORIGINAL QUESTION: A plane is on a runway that is a giant conveyor belt. As the plane moves, the conveyor will exactly match that speed but in the reverse direction. Can the plane take off? Again, the plane will take off.
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about 4 months ago
Nah, I just think we just have a misunderstanding of the original argument that’s all. You don’t quite understand how I interpreted the premise, but that’s cool. Obviously most people interpreted it your way.
about 4 months ago
@Sconz32 You don’t understand the premise of the experiment. Think outside the box, sconz….if you don’t understand what I am showing, then you will not understand the conclusions.
Feel free to believe that the plane will not take off and that perpetual motion machines might exist, we just haven’t discovered them yet.
about 4 months ago
You don’t understand the premise of the argument. The treadmill must constantly, at all times, be matching the wheel speed. You can’t just turn the treadmill on at a constant speed, then push the plane forward.
about 4 months ago
I particularly agree with the way the man explained why everything happened the way it did.
about 4 months ago
This video is an excellent demonstration and explanation. I particularly enjoyed you displaying how only the rolling friction needs to be overcome, regardless of the increasing speed of the treadmill.
about 4 months ago
The wheels would be spinning backward when it took off.
about 4 months ago
ahahaha
about 4 months ago
for all the people that are still saying things like: ‘if the treadmill is travelling at the same speed as the plane, it won’t take off’, just think about it…. the planes propulsion comes from it’s jets, or – in this case – propellers. the wheels have no effect on the planes speed, they are there purely to make take off and landing smoother.
and, if the wheels DID provide the thrust needed to make the plane take off (and fly), how would it move forward whilst in the air?
about 4 months ago
the wheels could be spinning backward and it would still take off
about 4 months ago
i cant believe people still has a hard time understanding the concept..
about 4 months ago
I see where you’re going with it, but I don’t think it would work. Aircraft wheels are designed to go quickly from stationary to spinning rapidly with minimal resistance — they have very little inertia. So when you stop the treadmill, the plane isn’t going go get much energy transferred from the wheels stopping.
Even if the wheels did have a lot of inertia, they’d probably “burn out” when you stop the treadmill — just like when you floor the accelerator in a stationary high-performance car.
about 4 months ago
Yes, but once you get your wheels moving really fast, you could then stop the treadmill, forcing the plane onto a small runway already at a high speed since the wheels are still turning so rapidly, this would cause enough airspeed under its wings for it to takeoff no?
about 4 months ago
No, because the treadmill is only affecting the plane’s groundspeed, not its airspeed. Groundspeed controls how quickly the wheels will be spinning, where airspeed is what actually allows the plane to fly. The prop increases airspeed regardless of how the wheels are turning.
However, you can rapidly accelerate the plane if you push on a fixed part of it rather than the wheel. This “catapult” method is how the Navy gets high-speed fighters to take off the short runways on aircraft carriers.
about 4 months ago
I want to see a full sized plane take off like this, from a treadmill that is going super fast. I thought the mythbusters test was a joke.
about 4 months ago
Hmm thats an interesting concept. I think it there is a way to suddenly put it to zero, it might be possible
about 4 months ago
So basically when you overcome friction the plane enters some kind of physical homeostasis (yeah I know its not the right use of the word) where the wheels match the speed of the treadmill no matter haw much you accelerate the treadmill. If you suddenly decrease the speed of the treadmill to 0 will the plane continue at the speed it was going? and if so could we use this to make the worlds smallest runway?
about 4 months ago
I think you explained this better than mythbuster did.
about 4 months ago
Now do a helicopter on a turntable.
about 4 months ago
I have to be honest, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept until this video. I see now that the only way that a conveyor would keep it stationary is if the pilot forced it to. The only way it wouldn’t fly is if the max force the propeller produced was only enough to overcome the friction. And if that was the case, then the plane wouldn’t fly even without a conveyor!
about 4 months ago
With the exception of the minimal amount of friction increase from bearings heating up, the friction is constant. That treadmill could have been running 100 miles an hour in reverse, and he still wouldn’t have needed to move the stick more than he did.
about 4 months ago
You just didn’t like being proved wrong. Stop being ignorant, and take it in stride.
about 4 months ago
you know what i didn’t i watched for 30-45 seconds and stoped it wrote my comment and left your vid thank you very much!
about 4 months ago
LOL…you watched it though, didn’t you.
about 4 months ago
hey guess what mr person on the vid NOBODY CARES!!!!
about 4 months ago
Oh ok thanks
Surely this concept could be used elsewhere? I just realized it is:
The hover-craft: Barely any friction = Less power needed.
Its cool