Originally Posted by alanh
BTW, driven gear also comes up with respect to the big puff of smoke when the wheels touch down. It's cheaper to change tires slightly more often than to spin up the wheels.
I've wondered about this. Yes, motors would be heavy and expensive. How about a few blades instead? The wheels are exposed to the airstream for some minutes before touchdown, it wouldn't take much force to spin them up. How about a few little plastic vanes to use the energy of the airstream to spin them?