Will an airplane on a treadmill still take off?

This was one of my favorite questions when it popped up on the net. (see the history below)

Imagine if you will, an airplane on a treadmill.  Imagine that as the airplane moves forward the treadmill rolls in the opposite direction as the same speed.  Will the airplane take off?

 

The internet if full of people writing about it here and here.  Two google searches combined contain about half a million results.

 

So what do you think? Will the plane take off?

 

 

The key to understanding it what causes the plane to move.  Hint: The wheels have nothing to do with it.

The famous Mythbusters even made a TV show about it.  The funny part is the pilot in their test didn't think he would take off.

 

 

According to http://waxy.org/2008/02/origins_of_the/ the earliest reference to it that I can find is this post to the PhysOrg Forums, dated July 19, 2005.  Which was posted by a russian man who got it from this Russian site here it is (it's in Russian) in 2003.

Posted via web from Someone On The Internet Is Wrong