Comments on: Fast-moving Jeep fixes flying Cessna

Fast-moving Jeep fixes flying Cessna

Saucy Intruder — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:01:49 -0800

Yesterday morning in Florida, the landing gear on a student-piloted Cessna failed to lock into place. After the plane circled for an hour, the airport president drove a Jeep underneath the plane at 80 mph while his passenger took a stick and knocked the wheels into place. And that, as they say in the business, was caught on tape.

By: bwg

bwg — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:12:17 -0800

A Hollywood solution — but whatever works ...

By: jikel_morten

jikel_morten — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:18:28 -0800

I used to do this sort of thing all the time - before my diarrhea got the better of me.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:18:48 -0800

Cool. I want to see it done with a 747 low on fuel!

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:21:18 -0800

that was pretty awesome, and reaffirms my irrational distrust of retractable landing gear in small aircraft. this is the most positive story I've seen emerge from Florida in a long, long time.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:23:06 -0800

All hail the inanimate metal rod.

By: MoralAnimal

MoralAnimal — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:28:50 -0800

the airport president drove a Jeep underneath the plane at 80 mph Well, that's one President I can get behind.

By: Talanvor

Talanvor — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:31:54 -0800

That's inanimate carbon rod.

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:37:22 -0800

"We're all holding our hands up to show that, when around airplanes with spinning props, there is some danger of losing your fingers!"

By: saladin

saladin — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:41:36 -0800

A very similar thing happened at St. Augustine airport in St. Augustine, FL several years ago. My neighbor had to reach up through the sunroof of a moving car and try to use his body weight (he's at least 300 lbs.) to try to unstick the front landing gear of a small plane. I'll be damned if I can find the article, though.

By: costas

costas — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 06:51:32 -0800

Once upon a time I served in Aviation Safety for a NATO Army. The story goes, that a few months before I joined, the CO of one of the maintenace companies got pissed that a chopper unit wouldn't send down a pilot to pick up one of the old OH-13 Siouxs that was over for maintenance. Now this major was ex-Special forces; the guy parachuted off planes and rappelled off choppers for fun. But he didn't know how to fly. After a phone call too many with the unit that was supposed to pick up the OH-13, he snapped. Walked off to the airstrip, got into the chopper, and took off. That by itself is freaking amazing, as piloting a helicopter is hard, even more so if you have never been trained to fly it. So, anyways, he takes off, and heads out away from the base. At which point he realizes that he doesn't know how to land the chopper. So he radios back to his unit. A few minutes later he was hovering over the airstrip and about a dozen guys jumped on the skis of the chopper and brought it down. Manually.

By: sdrawkcab

sdrawkcab — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 07:19:41 -0800

"you wouldn't fly in a plane with a pilot who's never flown before...." Unintentionally funny advertisement at the end. See West Wing's "Angel Maintenence" for fiction imitating life. In that case, the warning light was broken...on Air Force One.

By: letitrain

letitrain — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 07:37:31 -0800

The guys on the ground had to have 100% faith in the pilot that he could maintain steady altitude. Also, it's a good thing he had enough fuel that they could explore their options. Too often a pilot won't declare an emergency until it's too late.

By: snoktruix

snoktruix — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 07:39:38 -0800

Why is it that my state-of-the-art laptop cannot view this shitty embedded video? Is it because I'm a bad person, or is it just that video on the web is still a fucking pain in the ass.

By: dabitch

dabitch — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 07:44:12 -0800

snoktruix , my bleeding edge fresh new Tiger g5 can't view it either, I'm not so curious as to check what kind of video it is (might be windows media or something I have yet to install). Costas, I love that chopper story. Wow.

By: Lokheed

Lokheed — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 07:52:16 -0800

I want to see it done with a 747 low on fuel! You got it. 405 - The Movie

By: Western Infidels

Western Infidels — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 07:55:29 -0800

Busithoth: this is the most positive story I've seen emerge from Florida in a long, long time. saladin: A very similar thing happened at St. Augustine airport in St. Augustine, FL several years ago. One story like this is an amazing tale of one time when derring-do actually worked out well. Two stories like this make me wonder what the hell is wrong with freaking Florida.

By: JRun

JRun — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 08:07:53 -0800

By: tss

tss — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 08:11:02 -0800

This kind of thing seems to happen from time to time. I remember reading some article where it was a Mooney with gear problems and a bunch of guys speeding down the runway in an Audi. This may be the same story Saladin was thinking of; I couldn't find it either. Also, the article says that the flight instructor on board was doing the flying.

By: toastchee

toastchee — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 08:24:07 -0800

My uncle in rural Iowa built acrobatic planes in his spare time. He came up with a trick where he'd land his Christian Eagle on top of a rack on an el camino his brother would drive. I've flown with him a few times. Best Uncle Ever.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 08:24:16 -0800

Also, the article says that the flight instructor on board was doing the flying. I sure as shit hope so. I took private lessons as well, and if this had been a solo flight, they would've talked him into a slow crash landing, I bet.

By: toastchee

toastchee — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 08:24:28 -0800

Or would that be 'aerobatic' planes?

By: archaic

archaic — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 08:31:05 -0800

In a similiar vein perhaps a small aircraft could be used to free a stuck sun roof on an SUV

By: handshake

handshake — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 08:38:33 -0800

I was really hoping it to say that the plane landed on the Jeep - using the car as landing gear. But that would have been impossible, right?

By: handshake

handshake — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 08:39:16 -0800

Oh, crap...i guess I should have read all of the comments.

By: iamck

iamck — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 08:49:13 -0800

I read that as "the president", as in our dear leader, and needless to say, was impressed by Bush's direct government. It's early.

By: The Jesse Helms

The Jesse Helms — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 09:18:30 -0800

Americans are so awesome.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 09:24:40 -0800

Land a plane on me once, shame on... well, land it again... umm, can't get landed again?

By: twiggy

twiggy — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 09:58:43 -0800

I have seen a video of this same thing on at least 2 or 3 of the random "amazing videos" shows that show up on TLC, Discovery, SpikeTV, etc... Is this a newer one of the same thing happening? If not, these jeep guys should be yelled at by the MeFi police -- REPOST@#!$!@$

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 10:15:14 -0800

Two stories like this make me wonder what the hell is wrong with freaking Florida. If this is going to happen it's going to happen in Florida, which has the densest concentration of aircraft in the U.S. Though Alaska has far more per capita.

By: jalexei

jalexei — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 10:45:32 -0800

In a similiar vein perhaps a small aircraft could be used to free a stuck sun roof on an SUV Winner!

By: bz

bz — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 10:50:55 -0800

It would be "aerobatic" and it's a Christen Eagle.

By: kortez

kortez — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:05:14 -0800

tss writes "I remember reading some article where it was a Mooney with gear problems and a bunch of guys speeding down the runway in an Audi." Is this what you're referring to? (From The Oops List, where you'll also find other unsettling aeronautical images such as this, this, this and this.)

By: tsarfan

tsarfan — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:05:58 -0800

now thats customer service!

By: Snowflake

Snowflake — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:17:33 -0800

Or would that be 'aerobatic' planes? Actually, both are correct. Acrobatic is more commonly used in the UK, and Aerobatic more commonly used in NA.

By: Snowflake

Snowflake — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:19:17 -0800

Is this what you're referring to? It might be, kortez, but we can't find out since the Oops list doesn't allow hotlinking (at least according to the error message I get when trying to click on any of those links).

By: tss

tss — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:29:00 -0800

I don't know about the car, but that airplane's no Mooney, it's a Piper! Then again, my memory could be off. (I had to copy the link to the clipboard, then paste it into the address bar to see the image.)

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:54:45 -0800

snoktruix: Video on the web is absolutely not a problem, nor is your laptop to blame. In this case (like all others) it's the fault of shitty web developers who have no idea what the fuck they're doing. Here's just a snippet of the source, which I gave up trying to manually decipher:

if(currentspeed == 'high') videoplayer.dimensions = videoplayer.highdimensions;
	else if(currentspeed == 'low') videoplayer.dimensions = videoplayer.lowdimensions;
	else videoplayer.dimensions = videoplayer.highdimensions;
	videoplayer.playlistURL = siteDomain + '/videofiles/' + videoplayer.videoid + '/playlist.asx?qs=t;speed=' + currentspeed;
	videoplayer.volume = (typeof crumbs['audiolevel'] != 'undefined')? crumbs['audiolevel'] : 50;
	slidecategory = videoplayer.category;

I mean, jesus.... next time just stab me in the eye.

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 12:00:18 -0800

I thought that said the PRESIDENT drove the jeep. I almost shat my pants. Like the president of the US.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 12:26:26 -0800

that oops page is a treasure trove of aeronautical mayhem. I love it.

By: greatgefilte

greatgefilte — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 12:44:22 -0800

By: tu11ym0n

tu11ym0n — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 14:43:07 -0800

it's an ASX video file which from what I gather does not play on Macs - even with Microsoft Windows Media Player 9 for Mac installed. why they couldn't use a more universal codec is beyond me...

By: Rawhide

Rawhide — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:03:45 -0800

it's an ASX video file which from what I gather does not play on Macs - even with Microsoft Windows Media Player 9 for Mac installed. why they couldn't use a more universal codec is beyond me... Whatever the hell it is it works on my 6 yr. OLD mac running panther. It played as an embedded windows media file. oh, and it was moderately cool.

By: rubin

rubin — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 17:58:45 -0800

I witnessed a pickup truck rescue of an airshow performer who fell from a plane while wing walking. He was dangling from 100 feet of rope, quickly getting hypothermic, so they drove a truck under him several times, eventually cutting him down. Pretty exciting. Oddly enough, one of the guys in the truck, later flew into a power line and got stuck.

By: JohnnyB

JohnnyB — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:19:24 -0800

odinsdream: That's (almost) perfectly valid and comprehensible javascript.

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 20:35:03 -0800

But not very good javascript. The first three lines could be replaced with single assignment using the trinary (?:) operator. And it's not as if they weren't familiar with it since they use it in the fifth line.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 22:46:04 -0800

Hilariously, the ad that ran before this video was a personal injury lawyer whose spiel began "You wouldn't fly in a plane whose pilot had never flown before ..."

By: quiet

quiet — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 02:05:14 -0800

Try download from here (ASX file)

By: quiet

quiet — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 02:07:25 -0800

And if you're having difficulty playing the ASX file but you can play MMS URLs, just open the ASX in a text editor and paste the MMS URL into your MMS viewer. Damn that's a healthy dose of TLAs.