Plane on a treadmill .. to be on Mythbusters

[epsilon72]

Sqrl said:
Ok i have the best example I can think of:

If a plane is sitting on the equator on a runway can it take off against the counter-rotation of the earth?

Hopefully that should help some people.

There's one difference there - the atmosphere is stationary relative to the earth's rotation.  That's not the case with our conveyor belt.