It's plausible. The weight on the nose gear of an airplane isn't as much as you would think. The center of gravity of an aircraft is just slightly forward of its center of lift; in other words, just aft of the wing leading edge. I don't know how much weight is on the nose gear of a small airliner, but I'd bet it's less than ten percent of gross. So for a lightly-loaded aircraft, it would be possible to support the nose gear in a light truck. The nose gear is typically over-built, because you don't want the thing breaking off in a rough landing. Also, it has to be able to handle the weight of an aircraft at max takeoff weight at the forward CG limit. Dumping excess fuel and moving passengers & cargo aft will take a great deal of weight off the nose gear.
As for landing speed, the truck only has to get up to the aircraft's stall speed. For typical airliner, that's around 100 knots (110 mph), although smaller jets will stall slower. There are plenty of airports in this country with runways long enough to get a truck up to 110 mph; the real problem would be getting the airplane and truck stopped before running out of runway.
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Today's Featured Article - Harvestin Hay: The Early Years (Part 2) - by Pat Browning. The summer of 1950 was the start of a new era in farming for our family. I was thirteen, and Kathy (my oldest sister) was seven. At this age, I believed tractor farming was the only way, hot stuff -- and given a chance I probably would have used the tractor, Dad's first, a 1936 Model "A" John Deere, to go bring in the cows! And I think Dad was ready for some automation too. And so it was that we acquired a good, used J. I. Case, wire tie hay baler. In addition to a person to drive th
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