Thread: Brain Teaser - Flight Testing

Brain Teaser -
1. A truck driver with a cargo of birds approaches a bridge with a weight limit of one ton.
His truck + driver weighs 1,800 lbs and his load 300 lbs. The driver has an idea.
He hits the side of the truck, frightening the birds into flight and quickly drives across the bridge while the birds are airborne. Does this work?


I will tell you I did pose this brain teaser to group of people that were watching the Pro Bowl game yesterday and so I will tell you upfront that-
NO, I don’t know the type of truck,
NO, I don’t know the length of the bridge
NO, I don’t know what kind of birds.
And
NO the engineers did not build a safety margin into this bridge. The bridge in this scenario can carry exactly 1 ton - one more gram and the bridge disintegrates into confetti - multi-colored confetti if you just have to know.


Have fun. Lets see some answers


BTW, just for fun try figuring out this second brain teaser that stumped this board for six years yup 6 years!


2. A plane is standing on a moving (some sort of a band conveyer) runway.
The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyor belt moves in the opposite direction. The conveyer belt has a control system that tracks the plane's speed and tunes the speed of the belt to the plane (so you have the plane and the belt at the same speed but moving in opposite directions)
Can the plane take off?

Once you've come up with your answer- post it here (yes you're on the honor system) and then see our discussion (we really went back and forth) and the solution. BTW, a 'MythBusters' epiosode ultimately solved the question.

http://nonrev.net/open-discussion/13079-case-plane-conveyor-belt.html