Mythbusters/airplane on a treadmill.

This is very simple and you're making it way too complicated.


Ok this is the last thing I have to say about this.

This question has nothing to do with all your lil fancy areo-plane terms. This is a simple question of what forces are exerted on what objects. Just because you are fluent in the ways of airplanes does not make a damn to me. The physics are still very much the same.
 
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lowrange2 said:
This is very simple and you're making it way too complicated.


...
Click to expand...

I know, but believe me, after you get out of third grade, it won't be so complicated to you.

:D

--ron
 
Captain Ron said:

For example. Thrust must be equal to drag, and is required for stable state flight to be possible. Gliders are capabile of stable state flight, but they do not have propellers. Where's the thrust?
Click to expand...


Thrust is simply a pulling or pushing force.
If thrust were equal to drag, the plane would have zero airspeed.
For the plane to fly, it must have more thrust than drag. Maybe youre thinking of lift/weight. For a plane to maintain level flight, the lift must equal weight.
A glider, by changing the relationship of lift and weight, they can change the relationship of thrust and drag. decrease lift to increase thrust, increase lift you decrease thrust.
 
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This doesn’t have to be an airplane question. I could ask the same question using a rock and a string: Put a rock on a conveyor belt and tie a string to the rock. Now someone off the conveyor belt pulls the rock using the string. At the same time turn on the conveyor belt. What will happen to the rock? It’s obvious the rock will move forward because the motive force of the rock (person off conveyor belt pulling string) is independent of the conveyor belt. In other words the rock is not using the conveyor belt to move, it’s using the person pulling the string.

Same with the airplane. The motive force (propulsion caused by the prop, or even “string” in the case of a glider) is independent of the conveyor belt. The fact that an airplane will fly if it has a propulsive force great enough, (independent of the conveyor belt or a stationary tarmac) is a by-product of its shape. The fact that the object on the treadmill moves “forward” is a physics question.

Leave it to prop jockeys to make a problem harder than it needs to be. I call Lowrange the winner on this one. :D
 
I've only come up with one conclusion on this....

Cap'n Ron is a dick who likes to exert his brainpower on "lesser minded" individuals, and belittle them like the 4th grade bully.

I wanna start a discussion on OPCON, ADCON, and TACON, citing CJCSI and CJCSM documents and see what he has to say about it. I cant wait to call him a 3rd grade retard.

Personally, I cant come up with a decision one way or another - I guess that makes me a second grader. When I run on a treadmill, I certainly dont feel the air whooshing by me...and if I run faster, while simultaneously increasing the speed of the "mat", I dont move forward....

I bet Ron is Googling CJCSI/CJCSM/TACON/ORCON/ADCON right now....

Seems like a smart guy, but also an unbelievable prick....
 
Dude, if its past 10 pm spelling doesn't count, don't you know the rules around here?

Andy, chill.... You are getting way to worked up over nothing...
 
Wow, lots of fancy words being thrown out there. Just from what a simple minded indivisual like myself knows about flying I too have a theory. As long as the plane gets up to the same speed as it allways needs to lift/take off/shoot for the moon(whatever technical and complicated way you want to say "leaving the ground") It will fly! I dont care if the treadmill is running the wheels forward/backward or back and forth AS LONG AS THE PLANE REACHES THE SAME SPEED AS IT ALLWAYS DOES IT WILL FLY!!!
and its 3:30 am here, spelling does not count(not that it ever does for me anyway:) )
Jeremy
 
If planes could fly off treadmills then why doesn't the navy have them installed on the carriers? Would make for a much smaller ship!
 
Good point Ghost :) better than a catapult!
 
Wow. I just read this whole thread and a few things come to mind.


There is no such word as "wala" it is voila and it is french.

If you know the difference between centrifugal and centripetal forces, you should learn how to spell them.

Lift for any given fixed wing aircraft is dependent upon airspeed. Groundspeed has no bearing on lift whatsoever.

Plane flies.

Unless they tether the plane and run a treadmill under it really fast to see if it will spontaneously jump into the air.
 
Thats what i thought they were doing..
 
by speed I mean the actual plane speed/air speed whatever. If you pointed a radar at it, that speed, not how fast the tires are going on the treadmill speed.
just to clarify, Jeremy
 
an airplane gets lift from the air flow around the wing and if this said airplane is on a treadmill then were is the air flow comming from? The prop is there to popel the plane forward in efect causing air flow around the wings.If the plane stays still and the ground bellow the plane moves there is still no air flow. ......what is so hard to get?
 
Its going to depend on the type of craft, too. Prop or jet? How heavy? Harrier or Osprey... :D
 
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