Pat got me started
on an internet search to see if a Nissan pickup really saved an airliner with non-functioning front landing gear...
The subject comes up on Dogpile search, but no results appear. Thinking as an engineer, I think the video is probably a fake- the front gear landing impact load on a major airliner must be 15-30,000 pounds, or something on that order, and the Nissan's bed, wheels and suspension would have been squashed like a misbehaved spider. I may be a little off, but begin to find the whole thing unlikely, esp. considering the lack of info on the net. Kicky video though.
Other unlikely things may have occurred though, personally witnessed. REminded me, I don't know why [I remembe-"Call me whatever you want, just not late for dinner"], of the time Driller Reg wanted to cool some beer in Wyoming. Having no refrigerator in remote back-country Wyo, Reg, normally a pretty level-headed-appearing crew chief, got the brainwave of disconnecting the 1" propane supply hose to the crew heater, not needed in warm weather, and attempting to cool a six-pack with the detached propane hose relying on the expansive cooling of the propane.
This was one of those cases of a little knowledge being dangerous. He played the free-flowing propane on the beer for 15 or 20 minutes (imagine a 1" water hose!), and didn't get the beer much cooler, but it was probably about as close as I ever got to being blown to kingdom-come, none of us knowing any better at the time, or thinking about it sufficiently...
While R appeared pretty level-headed, it was the only crew I ever knew that smoked pot on the rig, so maybe they weren't all as wise as i assumed. And I did find the crew short-handed as they reported to me that R's brother had been arrested for attempting to rob a nearby bank without a mask.
Wild and wooley Wyoming! Or maybe it was just the young-peoples' culture in the boonies back in those days (the pot, not the bankrobbing), the young adults I knew in eastern Colorado appeared pretty hip as well. They befriended me as an out-of-town stranger, and possibly a representative of the big city, still in my 20s as well. There was a definite age-based cultural divide there that seemed to accord with the appearance of broadcast TV in nearby western Kansas, a few miles away...
The subject comes up on Dogpile search, but no results appear. Thinking as an engineer, I think the video is probably a fake- the front gear landing impact load on a major airliner must be 15-30,000 pounds, or something on that order, and the Nissan's bed, wheels and suspension would have been squashed like a misbehaved spider. I may be a little off, but begin to find the whole thing unlikely, esp. considering the lack of info on the net. Kicky video though.
Other unlikely things may have occurred though, personally witnessed. REminded me, I don't know why [I remembe-"Call me whatever you want, just not late for dinner"], of the time Driller Reg wanted to cool some beer in Wyoming. Having no refrigerator in remote back-country Wyo, Reg, normally a pretty level-headed-appearing crew chief, got the brainwave of disconnecting the 1" propane supply hose to the crew heater, not needed in warm weather, and attempting to cool a six-pack with the detached propane hose relying on the expansive cooling of the propane.
This was one of those cases of a little knowledge being dangerous. He played the free-flowing propane on the beer for 15 or 20 minutes (imagine a 1" water hose!), and didn't get the beer much cooler, but it was probably about as close as I ever got to being blown to kingdom-come, none of us knowing any better at the time, or thinking about it sufficiently...
While R appeared pretty level-headed, it was the only crew I ever knew that smoked pot on the rig, so maybe they weren't all as wise as i assumed. And I did find the crew short-handed as they reported to me that R's brother had been arrested for attempting to rob a nearby bank without a mask.
Wild and wooley Wyoming! Or maybe it was just the young-peoples' culture in the boonies back in those days (the pot, not the bankrobbing), the young adults I knew in eastern Colorado appeared pretty hip as well. They befriended me as an out-of-town stranger, and possibly a representative of the big city, still in my 20s as well. There was a definite age-based cultural divide there that seemed to accord with the appearance of broadcast TV in nearby western Kansas, a few miles away...