MythBusters airplane on a conveyor belt

In article ,
"Robert Barker" wrote:

"Jim Logajan" wrote in message
.. .
"Robert Barker" wrote:
wrote in message
..
. On Jan 30, 2:36 pm, Peter Clark
wrote:
For those interested in such things, the MythBusters show titled
"Airplane on a Conveyor Belt" is in TVGuide to air tonight at 9pm
Eastern US on Discovery/Discovery HD.

Any pilot (including the one that flew the plane on the show) and
believed they'd stand "like a brick" should fear their next BFR.

Why?

His conceptual confusion is obviously not uncommon or entirely without
cause - after all, consider the case of landing on that same treadmill and
applying the brakes. What do you think happens? Is it immediately obvious,
or do you have to spend some time thinking about it to get the resulting
motion correct?

No, I can perhaps understand the misconception in non-pilots. But for a
pilot not to understand tells me he slept through a lot of his ground
school...

It is possible that the pilot was told by the producers to say this even
though he knew better in order to create drama. I'm not saying this
happened, only that it's a possibility. This sort of thing does happen
in television.

rg

Ron Garret wrote:
In article ,
"Robert Barker" wrote:

"Jim Logajan" wrote in message
.. .
"Robert Barker" wrote:
wrote in message
..
. On Jan 30, 2:36 pm, Peter Clark
wrote:
For those interested in such things, the MythBusters show titled
"Airplane on a Conveyor Belt" is in TVGuide to air tonight at 9pm
Eastern US on Discovery/Discovery HD.
Any pilot (including the one that flew the plane on the show) and
believed they'd stand "like a brick" should fear their next BFR.
Why?

His conceptual confusion is obviously not uncommon or entirely without
cause - after all, consider the case of landing on that same treadmill and
applying the brakes. What do you think happens? Is it immediately obvious,
or do you have to spend some time thinking about it to get the resulting
motion correct?
No, I can perhaps understand the misconception in non-pilots. But for a
pilot not to understand tells me he slept through a lot of his ground
school...

It is possible that the pilot was told by the producers to say this even
though he knew better in order to create drama. I'm not saying this
happened, only that it's a possibility. This sort of thing does happen
in television.

rg


Most likely not. It's not surprising really. Many pilots don't have a
formal handle on physics. Many learn what they have to learn from the
books which mostly cover the specific reasons for a certain aerodynamic
behavior as that behavior relates to what the pilot "has to know".
In other words, many pilots can tell you what makes an airplane turn but
might not be able to list the simple machines or explain the mechanical
advantage of a pulley system.
This isn't meant to put pilots down in any way. In fact, one of the
finest air show demonstration pilots I ever knew was a high school drop
out. He couldn't explain much beyond what he learned to pass his
written, but what a stick he was. That guy could write his name in the
sky with a Pitts Special :-)

It's great to have a handle on physics, and indeed a great many pilots
have an above average amount of knowledge in this area, but finding
pilots who REALLY know the higher math and physics (and I mean knowing
these things at the level where they have a high degree of
comprehension) is a crap shoot.
As I say, they are out there for sure, but a high level of understanding
of physics definitely isn't a pre-requisite for the PPL.



--
Dudley Henriques