[KenWittlief]

the other thing that is counter-intuitive in this problem is this: the rolling friction of wheels is independant of the speed at which they are rolling

so no matter how fast the runway is moving backwards under the plane, the force that it applies to the airframe through the free-spinning wheels is a constant.

Its hard to imagine this, because we have never been in a situation where the rolling friction of a wheel is the only force stopping our motion. When you ride a bike, as you go faster the wind resistance increases exponentially with your speed, and thats what you feel in the pedals. But if you could ride a bike in a vacuum once you accelerated up to ANY speed, the force required to maintain that speed would be the same (the same at all speeds)

because all you are doing at that point is keeping those super low resistance bearings spinning.

Same with the jet plane - if you landed a jet plane on a runway at 200mph, in a vacuum, and did not apply the brakes to stop it, it would probabally coast for 3 or 4 hours until the rolling resistance of the wheels alone brought it to a stop.

And in the question posted, the only force that is trying to stop the plane from accelerating to takeoff speed is that same (small) rolling resistance of the wheels.