That's right, Bobert. No air speed, no lift. However, the wheels on the plane spin freely, unlike the wheels on most vehicles. The static inertia of the airplane means that when the treadmill starts moving East, the plane doesn't move east with the treadmill. It sits where it is, due to its own inertia, and its wheels spin. Now you start up the propellor. The plane will want to move west due to thrust pulling the plane through the air. The wheels will spin even faster while in contact with the moving treadmill. Presently the plane will start moving west because the prop is pulling it in that direction. If its wheels were resisting the treadmill, as the wheels on a car would, then the treadmill would cancel out the plane's westward movement, but the wheels aren't resisting the treadmill's eastward motion. They're spinning freely. The plane will move west regardless of the treadmill, and the wheels will spin ever faster as long as they are in contact with the treadmill. Presently the plane will reach a westward rate of speed sufficient to take off, regardless of what the treadmill is doing.

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fossil - you're right about the RAF not providing parachutes to their unfortunate airmen during almost all of WWI. The Germans provided parachutes to theirs by about halfway through, and many German airmen's lives were saved by bailing out of stricken aircraft.

Hamsters, however, have to make and provide their own parachutes whenever they use them, even German hamsters! Therefore the RAF policy in this regard was irrelevant in the case of wheel hub riding hamsters. A sensible wheel hub rider didn't need a parachute, because he would leap off just as the plane was leaving the ground...but a tiny parachute would be a good emergency backup in case the hamster for some reason did not jump off soon enough, as could happen with rotational intoxication!