Whereditgo
Journeyman Pro
Surely that only remains true while the plane (or whatever the wheel is attached to) remains stationary, to move the wheel has to rotate faster than whatever it is in contact with - but that's not permitted, so it skids.Lets say the whole length of the conveyor is 10,000 times the circumference of the wheel.
One whole rotation of the conveyor will match 10,000 rotations of the wheel.
The ratio will always be 1 to 10,000 in terms of their rotations.
The observer might perceive the plane to be moving along the conveyor, but it is actually moving through the air above the conveyor.
The conveyor makes no difference to the plane, the plane moves as if the wheels were hovering 1mm above the conveyor.
The fact that it is 1mm lower than this and has contact with the conveyor, causes the wheels to turn. They do not skid in this scenario.
The wheels will match the conveyor at one rotation to 10,000 rotations whatever the conveyor speed and whatever the speed the plane is doing through the air, including being stationary in the air.
Hovering in the air, running along a normal runway or running along a conveyor - plane takes off in the same way.
There is no backward pressure from the wheels as there is with driven wheels or human feet. The wheels are passive.
View attachment 57002
The wheel does 10,000 rotations for every one rotation of the conveyor, if the conveyor belt's whole length is 10,000 times that of the circumference of the wheel.
And this remains the same, whatever the speed of rotation of the conveyor and/or the speed of the plane through the air above the conveyor.
The wheels to not "need" to rotate "faster" than the conveyor in order for it to move through the air above the conveyor.
That is the wrong choice of words to describe what is happening.
The conveyor's rotation and the wheel's rotation will always be the fixed ratio relative to each other.
The wheels can't "do more" they are passive and have no power.
The conveyor altering it's rotation speed will mean that the wheels alter their rotation speed - to match. They do this passively - they can not do otherwise.
The wheels move along a surface. It does not matter whether that surface is a solid static runway or a conveyor, the plane is not hindered.
And the wheels do not skid on the conveyor, it takes off as normal, with wheels' rotation perfectly matching the rotation of the conveyor in a fixed ratio.
Overcoming the perception that the wheels "must rotate faster" than the conveyor for it to move along the conveyor - can be difficult to do.
To do this - forget "moving along the conveyor" and replace with "moving through the air above the conveyor".
This should free the mind from how driven wheels behave.
The wheels are there merely because the plane does not hover.
But the plane behaves just about the same as a hovering one would do, if that hovering one lowered a wheel form itself to just touch the conveyor to make it turn.
Force of jet engine causes plane to move through the air. The wheel below is just a dangly thing of little importance.
(Of course it has some importance, but far less than a lot of people realise, because they perceive how driven wheels behave most of the time)
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