Can airplaines use tank like treads unstead of wheels?
When landing and taking off. Or computer like mice , before lasers, with spheres?
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No. Too much rolling resistance.
Or thousands of mini wheels on the base.
You need to be able to brake the wheels, one could not do efficiently that with hundreds of small roller balls. And it does not make takeoff any easier to have to force all the little balls up to take off speed.
Also, not enough air cushioning. (Tire inflation.)
Actually, yes! They’ve existed since the 1940’s (and have improved considerably since then). The idea is to be able to land on terrain that would damage wheels or where wheels would sink in soft ground or, for very heavy aircraft (e.g. B-36 ), be unable to use even most paved airstrips (because tracks disperse the weight).
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