You can’t fly on one wing
It’s hard to discern certain aspects of the landing, because the camera operator can’t keep up at certain points, but here’s my guess (I’m not a pilot or anything related to aeronautics, but I’ve read quite a bit and I think I understand the basic theories).
The right wing falls off at the root, that we can see on the video. Then he gets into a spin for a couple turns, but manages to straighten it out. I’m with you on the engine torque issue, Drew: the prop is spinning clockwise from the pilot’s view, so torque is pushing counter-clockwise, meaning left wing down. As large as that wing is, it will have a good deal of lift, especially if it’s a high-lift type wing, which I think is pretty common on aerobatic planes. If the plane also has flaps, he can push those out as well, which will give him additional force to counteract the torque spin (a very large trim tab, essentially). Assuming flaps, the plane is now pretty neutral, and he’s a good pilot, so he flips the plane almost on its right side.
Now he has one large left wing, and a much smaller vertical stabilizer that is now acting rather wing-like. Then he stalls the plane, so it’ll come down helicopter-like, flattens it out and gains forward momentum, then at the last second the tail drags the ground (or possibly the right horizontal stabilizer, hard to tell). That lets the pilot know that he’s almost home free, so he eases up on countering the torque, letting the plane level off roll-wise, then slams it down onto the main gear, to the stunned amazement of all.
The reason that wheels and props sometimes appear to spin backwards on film has to do with the shutter speed of the camera in relation to the rotational speed of the spinning device. If the prop is spinning slightly faster than a multiple of the camera’s frame rate, up to almost 50% faster than that multiple, the prop will appear to spin correctly, but faster. Slightly faster than 50%, up to almost the multiple of the frame rate, and the prop will appear to spin backwards. Right around 50%, it’s difficult to tell exactly which direction the prop is spinning, and at exactly the multiple of the frame rate, the prop will stand still.
After further research via Google, it does appear to be a fake. When the plane first disappears from the shot, just before the wing falls off, it’s likely a real plane. After the plane reappears in-frame, it’s probably a radio-controlled scale model. The bounce upon landing also looks way wrong for a full-sized plane, but fits for a much smaller and lighter R/C model. Plus, one of the forums has several people who say they have done that very trick on one wing on a R/C plane, and it’s tough, but very doable.
Looks like just an advertising stunt.
Note that from 0:45, just before landing, to 1:01, where the prop stops and the canopy pops open, the aircraft never leaves the frame. Granted, there is some blurring and a couple spots where it NEARLY gets out of frame.
In other words, unless someone did one hell of an editing job, the aircraft that landed at 0:49 was the same one that has the pilot popping the canopy at 1:02. Yes, I’m wondering how the landing gear survived that bounce myself. I won’t say it wasn’t faked.... but if it WAS faked, whoever did it took a lot of care to get small details right.Very hard to tell, but being an R/C flyer myself my first thought was that someone had build an exact scale model of the full-sized aircraft.
The way the wing mounts (exposed after it falls off) to the fuselage look like the type of construction of a typical IMAC large-scale model rather than a homebuilt aircraft.
Either way, it’s a great clip....
Posted by TimO
11/14/2008 at 09:21 AM
Good point TimO. Wouldn’t a real airplane have all kinds of wires and rods and stuff hanging out of the broken wing root? The break does look very clean.
Fake- It’s an ad.
Posted by gdonovan
11/14/2008 at 04:36 PM
Stunt plane.
However, a good little spoof.
They added some background comments and the ‘radio chatter’ was a nice touch.
The editing was good, but not that good. Think of it as a college try at using the same editing techniques as the pros use for removing the wires from Neo in the Matrix. It isnt green screens that get the wires out of the frame, it is frame comparison and overwriting of data.
The key frames are the ones where things happen. The wing flying off into the wild blue, the camera looses focus, a great place to edit so you dont need to have reference photos of the plane. Though they probably tried to do it that way and it didnt come out good enough.
They use the camera focus slipping throughout the piece to legitimize it when they needed it.
The landing is impossible for many reasons. Though it is possible in an RC plane, the real one would not have done so well. The landing gear would have probably failed if you tried to spin the plane from a knife edge pass like that.
Not to mention how would one do that with a missing wing, the control surfaces would have to be the whole wing to spin the plane from a knife edge to flat for the landing that quickly as the plane was traveling quite slow at that point.
Then you have, well… There are too many transitions that are all masked with blur so they could edit sizing and color without losing the effect. As the human mind will take a staggering amount of change and not ‘see’ it from a transition like that.
Ahh, take a look at this video…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J72y_qFV2oc
There is a great advertising campaign video for a travel company that is in the same vein, possibly by the same company…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CivSgzxFcdg
Posted by B3
11/14/2008 at 04:54 PM
