A Pilot's Journey

I did not get as many comments on the Plane on a Conveyor Belt post as I thought I might. But I was glad to see that the majority of the posts came to the correct conclusion that the aircraft will take off. As was said in many of the comments, the wheels being free rolling will not impart any of the reward force of the conveyor belt to the aircraft. The aircrafts propulsion system (prop or jet) will propel the aircraft through the air regardless of what the ground is doing and the wheels will just spin twice as fast. I think there are several points where people get hung up on this; one is that they are thinking in terms of a car on a conveyor belt in which case the car will not move forward. There are others that think the question states that the aircraft will not move forward through the air and will therefore not take off, but again that would be assuming the aircraft acts like a car on the conveyor. There are still others that believe speed is the speed of the wheels (like a car measures speed on its speedometer). The speed of the wheels argument presents an impossible situation due to the way the question is worded. It says that the conveyor automatically adjusts its speed to match the airplane, but if we are going by the wheel speed it is not possible. Since the plane applies its force to the air, when it starts to move forward, the conveyor tries to match the speed in the opposite direction but all it does is cause the wheels to spin faster, so the conveyor has to speed up again, and the cycle has started. The conveyor has to accelerate to infinity and yet it would never catch up to the speed of the wheels. Now in reality the bearings would eventually fail, but the point is that the conveyor could never match the speed of the wheels even in a theoretical world of frictionless bearings, there is simply no way for a conveyor belt to prevent an aircraft from moving forward and taking off.

It seems everything is conspiring against me to keep me on the ground lately. The weather has been battling against me, and now the airplanes. I went to fly on Saturday and the first airplane had a burned out landing light, According to FAA regulations an aircraft that is used for hire at night must have a working landing light. I was not planning to fly at night, but I was not sure if it fell under the FAA rule about airworthiness in which case all equipment on the aircraft must be working unless it is part of a Minimum Equipment List or is placarded as inoperative by maintenance. The flight school said they knew about the light and had meant to remove the aircraft from service until it was fixed. They gave me a different airplane and during the preflight I found that the avionics master switch was faulty. The avionics master consists of two switches one for Avionics Bus 1 and the other for Avionics Bus 2. I found that Bus 1 did not actually turn off though the switch was in the off position. This I am sure falls under the second FAA rule that I mentioned. Neither one of these problems would have caused the aircraft to not fly properly, but I know the regulations and seeing as how I now have a Commercial Certificate I want to make sure I don't do anything to lose it. Now I am hoping for better weather and working airplanes. Till next time, fly safe...