mythbusters answer airplane on treadmill question

[jon applespeed]

Originally Posted by FLipped

It did fly....but only though "intelligent lifting"

LOL, I prefer to believe that after the plane lifts off, it will be reborn on the ground.

[tokendog]

They should have done more explaining of why their test was accurate. I see comments that the tarp moving backwards was not like a treadmill. It's exactly like a treadmill, WTF?

[amsoilguy]

Originally Posted by jon applespeed

LOL, I prefer to believe that after the plane lifts off, it will be reborn on the ground.

OK, will a plane fly if the wind is going exactly the same speed in the same direction with the plane? (tail wind). Should not fly technically as the airflow over the wing airfoil will be non existant. Therefore there should be no effective lift as there will be no compression of the air under the wing..... Want to see them try this one.

As chitty said, the treadmill is inconsequential.... could be moving 1000 times faster in the opposite direction and it would fly.

[Ol'Rattler]

Up until that episode, I usually found the show entertaining. The suposid "myth" make some asumptions that anyone that had 10th grade Science would understant as bogus asumptions.

An airfoil is a machine and flys because of the winds relitive motion to it. If they would have explained that first, it would have been obvious to anyone watching how retarded their "myth" premese really was.

[Jettadoor]

The trick to getting a float plane up is to push the stick forward at a certain speed to lift up the tail and then pull back just enough to keep the plane level so it is just skimming on the bottom of the floats. Only then can they pick up enough speed for good airflow over the wings. This is one of the trickier manoeuvres in a float plane; an experienced pilot will get it spot on most times and a rookie might have to take a few tries to get it right.

I know this is off topic but it has been mentioned a couple of times in the thread so I thought I could get away with it

[Ol'Rattler]

I heard a story about a pilot with a brand new float plane rating that no matter what he did, he couldn't get up on "step" so he couldn't get enough airspeed to take off.

He went back to the dock and after a little investigation, it turn out that he had not checked for or pumped the standing water out of his floats. With water sloshing around inside the floats and the sudden changes in CG that would caused, pitch control must have been rather "breathtaking" shall we say.