Comments on: For The Last Time: The Plane Takes Off!

By: DS

DS — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:40:38 +0000

I missed part of that episode and was just wondering what the make and model of the yellow ultralight was?

By: Jason Coleman

Jason Coleman — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:11:28 +0000

Will - I fully admit that the Mythbusters are hardly the equivalent of a peer-review journal. However, they routinely re-visit problems with experiments and do a pretty good job of testing and I honestly don’t see that the results would be any different on a more controlled conveyor belt.

Sue - I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this isn’t the World Wild Web and calling people names isn’t welcome here (especially when we all know one another but not you). This argument has been going around for two years now and leaving a less-than-pleasant comment here isn’t going to end anything. Be nice or move on.

By: Sue

Sue — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:12:00 +0000

You dolts. The prop was pulling the plane forward through space, and pushing air over the wings, creating LIFT.

The plane will always take off at a particular speed through the air. Air speed is not to be confused with speed over the ground, which is totally irrelevant.

The prop gave the plane the necessary forward airspeed to become airborne, and the expected result was seen: liftoff.

If you think common sense conflicted with science, then you’re not really familiar with either. The result was completely predictable.

The wheels have NOTHING whatsoever to do with either propulsion or lift.

By: Will

Will — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 03:00:23 +0000

Oh come on Jason, it’s the freaking Mythbusters, not NASA. They’ve screwed up tons of experiments. Go back and watch it again, that aircraft was not stationary. That aircraft was moving forward on the track the entire time. All you have to do is pay attention to it’s motion in relation to the cones placed along the track. Until some egghead from the JPL steps up and does this for real (with a real conveyor belt as the myth stipulated and not a track dragged my a vehicle that did not maintain a constant speed), the jury is still out.

By: Jason Coleman

Jason Coleman — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:29:12 +0000

Well, I was trying to be polite, but yeah - it kind of shocks me, too, that people are being so insistent on the wrong answer. Basically, the wheels spin twice as fast as they would during a normal take-off (if they are remotely decent wheels, they offer negligible increased resistance). However, you - perhaps more than the average individual - have a fairly innate sense of mechanics.

People keep trying to (either intentionally or not) mis-represent the initial problem statement as being something else. Now, as for the fan, that would certainly change the situation as it would introduce outside forces onto the plane.

By: JTJ

JTJ — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:03:06 +0000

It would have at least been slightly more interesting to have a fan blowing toward the front of the plane at the same speed as the propeller (I mean wind force, not RPM).

Of course, the plane would still take off; it just wouldn’t move foreward.

By: JTJ

JTJ — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:00:54 +0000

Ok. I never had any courses in statics, dynamics or even physics in college, but I still can’t believe people would even question this. I’ve been hearing about this all day today. How did this make it to Mythbusters? This is just common sense. The plane is pushing against the air. What’s underneath has nothing to do with it. Seems to me, the only thing the conveyor belt is doing is creating a tiny bit more resistance due to the friction in the wheel bearings.

In the words of GOB Bluth, COME ON!!

By: Jason Coleman

Jason Coleman — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:35:40 +0000

Uh, yeah. So I know there are probably a dozen more important things I should have been blogging about for the past month. There’s just been too much going on. The short & skinny? We’ve moved to TN, we’re all doing fine, work is good for both of us, you’ll all get updates very soon.

In the meantime, you get stuff like this to entertain you…