56,000 pounds of thrust

[galen]

Can this video be real?

[treis]

Yes, those are some huge engines.

[Ravenman]

That poor invisible driver! His imaginary wife is going to be pissed that he wrecked their real car.

[Larry_Borgia]

“Big engine, lightweight hippie car. This should be fun!”

[Tuco]

@galen

56,000 pounds of thrust

Nope, it’s 58,000 lbs.
That’s the BBC show Top Gear, they do all kinds of stunts like that, I think it’s on BBC America.

[Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party]

I remember watching that episode. Yes, it’s real.

[An_Arky]

Oh, rats! I thought this was going to be another “My Dick is So Big” threads!
This page has a blurb about a NASA/USGS “Rotational Tuning Facility” that makes fine adjustments to Earth’s rotation using jets located around the world…I’ll bet those suckers generate more than 56K of thrust!

[LSLGuy]

Airline pilot here …

That’s real. I can throw baggage carts & lav trucks a long way with a twist of the wrist. I’ve seen it done. Gotta be very careful since the Boss gets really upset if I do that.

[Stark_Raven_Mad]

The Mythbusters tried this once, I think, but it didn’t quite work out.

(Slight hijack: can anyone identify the choral stuff that plays around the blowing of the first car?)

[butler1850]

@Stark Raven Mad

The Mythbusters tried this once, I think, but it didn’t quite work out.

(Slight hijack: can anyone identify the choral stuff that plays around the blowing of the first car?)

They did use a much smaller engine IIRC. Leer jet sized, vs 747 size.

Minor difference.

[TheOnlySaneOne]

@Stark Raven Mad

The Mythbusters tried this once, I think, but it didn’t quite work out.

(Slight hijack: can anyone identify the choral stuff that plays around the blowing of the first car?)

(Reply to slight hijack: I think it maybe something from one of the Lord of the Rings movies.)

[racer72]

I would like to see that except use a 777 with 108,000 pounds of thrust.

[Q.E.D]

@racer72

I would like to see that except use a 777 with 108,000 pounds of thrust.

A mere trifle! Let’s strap on a Saturn V booster–7.5 million pounds of thrust.

[Rick]

Did you guys notice the following?
[ul]
[li]The Virgin Atlantic logo was blurred on the tail, but not on the nose of the 747. I wonder why?[/li][li]The rear bumper and rear window of the Mondeao was blown off / out before the car had completed the first roll?[/li][/ul]

[Bambi_Hassenpfeffer]

@TheOnlySaneOne

(Reply to slight hijack: I think it maybe something from one of the Lord of the Rings movies.)

It’s “The Flight to the Ford”, from the score of Fellowship of the Ring.

[Ogre]

@An Arky

Oh, rats! I thought this was going to be another “My Dick is So Big” threads!
This page has a blurb about a NASA/USGS “Rotational Tuning Facility” that makes fine adjustments to Earth’s rotation using jets located around the world…I’ll bet those suckers generate more than 56K of thrust!

That page also has a blurb about the “low gravity cavern” :dubious: :

Although not actually in central Virginia, the Galax low-gravity cavern bears inclusion here for its uniqueness. In 1996, Virginia spelunkers Tim Doyle and Vaughan James were exploring unmapped areas of a cave near Galax, Virginia when they entered a chamber in which they suddenly felt light on their feet. They quickly discovered to their utter amazement that, in this chamber, they could effortlessly leave the ground merely by “pushing off,” and rise high into the chamber before gently falling back to the floor. What Doyle and James had discovered was soon confirmed by government scientists to be a “gravity hole,” a phenomena that had, up to that point, only been theorized by geophysicists. The gravity hole is essentially a region of reduced gravity which results from an unusually-dense mass immediately above the area, suspected in this case to involve a high concentration of the element iridium.

The Galax low-gravity cavern has since become a hotbed of controversy and dispute over ownership and intended use. A court battle currently rages between landowners wanting to create an amusement park which features the “Low-G” cavern as a centerpiece, and the federal government who has laid claim to the cavern with the intention of researching the gravity hole phenomenon further and potentially using it for astronaut training.

[butler1850]

@Rick

Did you guys notice the following?
[ul]
[li]The Virgin Atlantic logo was blurred on the tail, but not on the nose of the 747. I wonder why?[/li][li]The rear bumper and rear window of the Mondeao was blown off / out before the car had completed the first roll?[/li][/ul]

1. Not in every shot of the video. It’s clearly visable on the tail in many of the scenes.
2. The rear bumper was simply torn off when the wind got “under” it. The rear window blowing out followed the side window blowing out at the start of the roll. the pressure allowed (forced) inside of the passenger compartment simply blew out the rear window seal. You’ll note the boxy-VW Bug like car had it’s entire roof blown off in the similar “first roll”.

Great video, and a great site! I wish it wasn’t blocked from work, that’d be a real time sink on a bad day.

-Butler

[shelbo]

Another 747 Video to deconstruct. LSL Guy, what do you think is going on here?

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/30410/boeing_747_extreme_landing/

[St_Ides]

@shelbo

Another 747 Video to deconstruct. LSL Guy, what do you think is going on here?

VideosHub | Popular Internet Videos

I’m not LSLguy, but I’ve got this whip…
That’s a KLM 747 landing at Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong.

It had an absolutely insane approach that involved low level turns, and was a quite a low altitude over tall buildings. It was pretty unanimously known as the most difficult airport to land at in the world.

That landing was probably just an approach that got a little hectic. It looks like the pilot made some pretty huge mistakes… but a perfect landing at Kai Tak didn’t look much different than that.
From Wikipedia

The landing approach using runway 13 at Kai Tak was spectacular and world-famous. To land on runway 13, an aircraft first took a descent heading northeast. The aircraft would pass over the crowded harbour, and then the very densely populated areas on Western Kowloon. This leg of the approach was guided by an IGS (Instrument Guidance System, a modified ILS) after 1974. Upon reaching a small hill marked with a checkerboard in red and white, the pilot needed to make a 47° visual right turn to line up with the runway and complete the final leg. The aircraft would be just two nautical miles from touchdown, at a height of less than 1000 ft when the turn was made. Typically the plane would enter the final right turn at the height of about 650 ft and exit it at the height of 140 ft to line up with the runway.

Of course, this is all in the past. Kai Tak was closed back in 1998.