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[kennith]

Originally Posted by roastbeef

i still maintain my theory that the plane would not take off.

there is very significant resistance against the free spinning wheels.
pretend you have a toy car on a treadmill. the treadmill is on, and you are holding it in place. the moment you let go of the car, it will immediately begin to 'slow' and fall off the back of the treadmill pretty quickly.

the same applies to an airplane. even though the airplane is moving by creating thrust, the engines are still working to keep the plane from falling off the back of the treadmill. the engines can not create and infinant amount of trust, and therefore, can not create enough thrust to overcome the resistance against the spinning wheels. im willing to bet the turbines would burn up too.

in a perfect world where there was no friction, the plane would take off. if there was no friction, the toy car on the treadmill would remain stationary when you let go, also.

That is simply not the case at all. I hate to be so darn contrary, and I mean this as nicely as possible, but that is just wrong.

Cheers,

Kennith