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Originally Posted by SteveC The thing to remember is that rolling friction (such as in a wheel bearing) does not go up as the speed increases. This is the key! Our person standing in front of the airplane, holding a rope with about 40 or 50 pounds of pull against it, can hold the airplane from moving backwards whether the treadmill is moving at 1 mile per hour, or 100 miles per hour!
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Agree that mu does not change, the thing is that as the airplane goes faster and faster, so does the treadmill. Regardless of how much thrust is actually generated. This keeps the plane in one location no matter how hard the engines are pushing! If it was able to take off of a treadmill, why don't Japanese airports have big treadmills to launch planes? (Japan is my example because I'd imagine it'd be cheaper to build a large scale treadmill than a whole new island for an airport...
Honestly, I can see how you can argue both ways and as far as I'm concerned, this is why physics is pure and utter crap. It's the religion of sciences
