champu

Nope. If you spin a wheel fast enough you can generate enough friction to counter anything, right up to the point where the wheels simply explode. You forgot one of the conditions laid out in the original post: The only kind of plane that could take off in such a scenario would have to be capable of VTOL

This is the correct answer. And better berrings in the wheels will just make them get to a faster rotational rate before they explode. The engines of the plane are designed to take air from in front of the plane, and throw it behind the plane to make the airframe move forward relative to the air. Once the airframe builds up enough speed relative to the air (force of lift = force of gravity) the plane will leave the ground. It doesn't matter what the engines or the wheels are doing, all that matter is what the airframe is doing relative to the wind. And here's the part people are missing... Even though the plane does not use the wheels to drive itself forward, as long as the plane is sitting on the ground and using the ground for support, it's forward speed along the ground (and thus it's airspeed because there is no wind) is bound to the rolling speed of the wheels. Four forces acting on the airframe. 1) force of gravity holding it down 2) normal force from the belt holding it up 3) force of thrust from the engines pushing it forward 4) force of friction from wheel bearings pushing it backward as the belt spins them faster and faster they all cancel, the plane's not going anywhere, at least not until, as pjc says, the wheels explode and the plane flies off the back of the belt.

whenever I see your avatar, this is all I can think of: You and your third dimension, it's cute, we have five. ... Thousand. Yes, five thousand. Oh, yeah? Well, I only see two. Well, that sounds like a personal problem.

Any time you write into law the ability to bypass judicial oversight, temporarily or otherwise, on the monitoring of American citizens or American persons, it is cloak-and-dagger at best and unconstitutional at worst. So right out of the gate I am very skeptical of this program. However, I really can't blame the executive branch for wanting to do this, and with as little "red tape" as possible. I can imagine analyzing communications patterns between the United States and countries that are home to terrorist cells would provide excellent leads for them to follow. Leads like this are highly perishable. In the interest of civil liberties, I would support an investigation into the matter, perhaps led by FISC, to find out if Bad Things(tm) really happened here (musings of uncertain horrors/fascist states notwithstanding.) If they have, then we certainly need to take corrective/punitive actions. All the while we must keep in mind numerous congressional leaders were informed of the program and didn't do anything about it. While I certainly agree knowledge does not imply oversight, to a holder of public office, silence sure as shit implies consent.

protrack settings: 4way - 4000, 3200, 1800 FF - 5000, 3200, 1800 wingsuit - 5000, 4000, 2500 usually protrack records 2200-2400 for deployment. lowest protrack recorded deployment altitude was 1700. I have, however, done a couple hop-n-pops from 2 grand that the protrack didn't record cause I dumped as soon as I was clear of the tail. With my forward speed in that case I don't imagine I was below 1700.

The best way for a group to stay self-governed in this country is to make responsible decisions that keep individuals and the group as a whole below the radar of law makers. Out of sight, out of mind. The government has this way of gravitating towards people/groups/industries that don't appear to be taking care of themselves, and imposing oversight. The USPA sets up guidelines intended to promote responsible decision making.

Wow. The whole point of the USPA is that skydiving is a mostly self-governed sport and we want it to stay that way. The FAA has only a handful of rules regarding skydiving, and we want it to stay that way.

I love that soul child remix of 19-2000. Sweet video... but it reminds me how I need to get off my ass and put a video together...

Why? Polymer-based lithion-ion batteries are actually fairly safe. Just don't, you know, crash your model airplane into a swimming pool.

d'oh! Okay, I've updated my reading on this. What threw me was that Airbus has been repainting that same aircraft with the colors of various airlines over and over again and masquerading around on publicity tours over the last month. So all the photos so far of A380s from different airlines are all actually the same plane. (S/N 003 perhaps?) That makes sense now.

Emirates won't receive their first A380 until at least October 2006. They have ordered 45 of them IIRC, but they are in line behind Singapore Airlines and Qantas. So, no it's not a real photo.

It was a simple point. 50 posts later it has turned into an angsty thread about running people off the freeway and impounding people's cars, all to the sound of cheering and hooting from the peanut gallery.

Overrated: television Underrated: books/music Overrated: text messaging Underrated: meeting for lunch

Here's what the area looks like for those of you not familiar with Midway Google Maps Midway Airport /edit: I'm guessing the 737 was attempting to land on 31C

*shrugs* I took a final this afternoon. I have another one Monday. Happily, work allows me to be gone as I please during finals cause it's their dime and they want their money's worth. Although with engineering finals, preparation is a little different. I skim over homework solutions to make sure I had the right idea everywhere and add some tabs to the book so I can get to tables and equations faster during the test. (or copy them into the front cover) Kallend, do you generally give open book exams?

[epilogue] When police noted expensive looking, non-bomb related obejects flying through the air, they grabbed their collars with their index fingers and pulled them to the side stating, "eeehhhh." Passengers were told their luggage was simply lost in transit and were only offered $100 because they did not purchase additional coverage. Officer Spot McHound, who had barked at the bags that were subsequently destroyed, was not available for comment.

me: "You know in England they use 'Good Morning', etc to be a fairwell rather than a greeting." friend: "Yeah well, we're not in England, fag." me: "Nah, I don't smoke."

I haven't received mine yet, but I'm told they called me "Brian" and screwed up which person I was in the photo of a hybrid. Oh well, erroneous publicity is better than no publicity.

Actually, there's a specular highlight on the back of the right dog's head, that and the hard shadow of its left ear on its neck suggests the light was coming from pretty far away. I'd bet all three photos were taken in roughly the same location. The reason the right dog appears more evenly illuminated is likely because the camera had an automatic exposure setting, which will get confused and darken the whole photo if you have specular highlights in the center of the frame as it seems to have done with the other two dogs. I'd conclude it's a photo of the middle dog in front of a real background with two additional poses of the same dog in about the same location cut out of their background and pasted on top of the first photo.

Wednesday is the day into which I cram a week worth of grad school so that I can work the other four weekdays and skydive Saturday and Sunday. Although today is more like a week and a half because I was out of town last week for Thanksgiving. On that note...

This weekend was particularly beautiful. Incredibly clear. You could see Los Angeles and San Diego from altitude.

Well maybe if you did more freeflying on your exits you wouldn't be so uptight

I suppose that's a good thing, as I'm a systems engineer.

Pretty much everywhere along the pacific rim has loads of earthquakes every day. The vast majority of them could easily be mistaken for a truck driving by the building you're in.

My profile is fairly unremarkable, so it could go either way. ...but judging by this thread's success...