Originally Posted by raisin
It will gain sufficient speed to take off relevant to the conveyor belt. The ASI will read zero as the propeller is working to maintain the aircraft's position on the conveyor belt, not to move forward throught the air.
What exactly does an aircraft's propulsion system do? It pulls the aircraft
through the air not over the ground. The ASI will NOT read zero, it will read as per a normal take-off. The treadmill has no means by which it can slow the aircraft down. We are talking aeroplanes, not cars.
Here is an excellent tongue in cheek analogy from the Straight Dope thread:
Originally Posted by Chronos
OK, how about a different thought experiment? We have a plane on a perfectly normal runway, but next to the runway are a bunch of people whistling. The plane starts its engines, but the more the engines rev up, the louder the people whistle, so the plane can't move at all. If it did move, the people would just whistle even louder, to prevent it. Since the plane can't move, being prevented by all the whistling, there's no airflow over the wings, so the plane doesn't take off.
The treadmill has about as much affect on the take off performance of the aircraft as the people whistling do.