Gnizmo on 23 October 2007
Those scenarios are totally different. If you pulled back on a rope on my arm, then of course it would stop me. Same as if you tied the plane to something, it wouldn't be able to take off. Because the force provided by the rope always exactly matches the force provided by the plane/my legs. Therefore I won't move until either the rope breaks or whatever is holding it breaks.
There will be some force transfered from the wheels to the body of the plane however. Look at it like this, if you put the plane on a tread mill and started it going would the plane move backwards? The answer is, of course, yes it would. So we have established that the ground can, infact, exert force on the entirty of the plane. As such, it is no longer a question of if you can counter the force of the engine by applying a force on the wheels, but what happens when you put that much force on the wheels themselves. And, if it is even possible to create a machine to exert that kind of force.
