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Old 25-December-2008, 09:08 AM
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Northern Utah
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Default Car on a Trailer/Plane in a boxcar

I the spirit of Plane on a Conveyor Belt, and recalled from years ago by the Van Full of Budgies, I've got a question about a plane in a truck trailer (boxcar just sounded better).

Most everyone has seen the stunt where a car is driven up onto a moving trailer. If the trailer is going 30 units of choice per hour, and the car is doing 33, the car will overtake the trailer at 3 units per hour, but as soon as the car hits the trailer the tires will be going 33 relative to the trailer, and thus accelerate to 63 relative to the ground, assuming the driver does not back off of the throttle. Is this right? It seems right, but is it?

In the same line, what if a remote controlled plane were flown into the open back of a box trailer? Let's say the trailer is doing 50 kph and the plane is doing 60. The plane would gain on the trailer at 10 kph, but what would happen when the plane crossed the threshold where the air in the trailer was not moving relative to the trailer? Assuming of course that the plane were able to pass through the turbulence coming off of the back of the trailer.

I've always figured that the plane would have a sudden acceleration, but as I think about it now, I think the plane would drop to the floor of the trailer since the airspeed would drop from 60 kph to 10. At least until it got back up to speed or hit the front of the box.
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