MythBusters airplane on a conveyor belt

"gatt" wrote in
:


"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
news:0c2b0515-acb4-4050-844e-

Do some believe that an airplane generates lift as a result of the
speed of the wheels?

Maybe if they fast-forward the videotape they'll generate even more
lift.




That's how Anthony would do it!

Bertie

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.

Myth busted, Airplane (ultralight on a 2000' "treadmill") took off normally.
As did a model on a small treadmill.

ManhattanMan,

Myth busted,


What myth? gd&r

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

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.

Anybody who believes that a plane can't take off from a conveyor belt
is ignorant, and doesn't understand basic Physics...

The rolling resistance of a wheel rotating at twice the takeoff speed
is nowhere near the thrust produced by a spinning propellor at takeoff
power. The only resistance that a wheel provides is from the friction
of the bearings, and the deformation of the tire. Neither of these
forces come close the the thrust produced by the prop.

I still can't believe how many pilots on this board actually argued
that the plane can't take off. Anyone who made that argument needs to
sign up for a class in Physics. The math for this situation is pretty
simple. Fprop_thrust - Fwheel_rolling_resistance = Ftakeoff_thrust
F=m*A is then used to calculate the acceleration of the airplane on
the conveyor belt.

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.

"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?

"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...

"Robert Barker" wrote in
:

"Jim Logajan" wrote in message
.. .
"Robert Barker" wrote:
wrote in message
news:c617bbc3-25ae-4fea-bc11-

.. . 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...

I know an ex RAF airline pilot who thinks that a crosswind in the cruise
causes yaw problems.


No ****..

Bertie

"Robert Barker" wrote in message

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...

Or just hasn't thought it through fully. If you don't properly visualize
the experiment it's easy to think "Well, that's stupid. The airplane's not
going to take off from a conveyor belt because it's not going anywhere.
Otherwise, it would take off if you were sitting on the ground and applied
full throttle..."

....which, of course, is exactly what it does. ...just not where you've
parked it. The discussion must specifiy the length of the conveyor belt
because when I heard it I visualized a treadmill about the same length as
the airplane and thought the experiment was talking about VTOL.

-c

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