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When the plane is on the ground, the engines are useless if forward movement is negated by the treadmill. The wheels are required to take off.


You can move an aircraft which has it's wheel breaks set. Roling friction reduces take off speed, but it's not nessisary on high preformance aircraft.


Actually, most planes have brakes that are strong enough to keep the plane stationary at maximum engine thrust. If they didn't you couldn't do an engine runup. But no plane is able take off with the brakes set, treadmill or no treadmill.


You are not limited by the breaks only the tires friction which depends on weight. So in many cases, you can start to move if you don't have enough cargo and fuel on board.

PS: You really do need to tie down an F-15 to do a maximum engine thrust test. Edit: As I said "high preformance"


And as I said: most planes.


Of course you can, because the break isn't strong enough to counter the engine. The treadmill in question though is designed to keep the aircraft stationary.


The limit is the friction your tires have with the ground. In a car your breaks are actualy to powerful to provide maximum breaking. Once they start to skidd the friction is greatly reduced which is why you have anti lock breaks.


That's the crux of the issue. If you could somehow make a treadmill that keeps the plane stationary then it wont take off. However, any treadmill built in the real world will be unable to keep a normal aircraft stationary.


Moving the treadmill at the same speed (in reverse) just doubles the rotational speed of the wheels. It does not have any major impact.


This is not completely on-topic, but in the nicest way possible, I'd like to bring up the fact that downmodding shouldn't be used to disagree with somebody. (Not happening to me, but I notice that some people are getting downmodded for apparently that reason). This isn't meant to start a debate, just a friendly observation.




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