The Treadmill Problem: Busted?
Last year, I posed on this blog the question of the “Treadmill Problem”. That is, if a runway was turned into a giant treadmill that could exactly match the rotational speed of the wheels of an aircraft trying to takeoff, would the aircraft ever takeoff? Well, earlier this week the infamous MythBusters took on that very problem.
They first performed a small-scale test with a model airplane and a real treadmill. The result? The model airplane took off. They then performed a much larger scale test with a real ultralight aircraft on an actual runway. They used a huge roll of tarp material pulled in the opposite direction of the aircraft by a pickup truck. The result? The airplane took off with little effort. They explained the science behind it. In a car, forward motion is generated by friction between the tires and the road surface, so on a treadmill a car would remain still. However, in an aircraft, the actual forward thrust is provided by the propeller or jet engines, the wheels just allow the aircraft to easily roll. So, no matter how fast the treadmill moves under the wheels, the aircraft easily takes off. It makes sense.
Related: The Treadmill Problem | The Treadmill Problem Revisited
