from Mike

[ljgeoff]

"No matter what happens, keep flying the plane."

Edit: Bummer! This isn't a real plane. Ah, well. Check out epi_lj's comments below.

Comments

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I wonder if that's real or not. It's so hard to tell these days. So many viral marketing campaigns are copping this "amateur video footage" feel, then people trim off the marketing bits and post it to YouTube. Because they're marketing campaigns, they can often have an impressive effects budget to make everything look very real.

I couldn't find anything to verify this one either way with a little poking around. Lots of the comments tag it as a virtal marketing campaign, but without saying what product it's for or providing any links. Snopes doesn't have anything denying its reality, but there are also no news articles anywhere talking about this happening, which you'd think would have made the papers.

If I had to guess, I'd guess fake, but I kind of want it to be real.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

Well, Mike said that it happened in Germany -- I dunno! It would be cool if it was real.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

It's fake. :(

The branding on the plane is for a clothing company that put the whole thing on as a stunt. They made a website for the "pilot" and have some staged interviews. The interview part of the site is here. You'll notice the very staged interview where the pilot doesn't talk about the technical details at all but is made to look really "cool", the branding all over him and the website itself. If you check out this page, you'll see the following response:

You do realise that this video is a hoax, don't you? It's done with a radio controlled model losing a wing, and well-done CGI.

In fact the entire James Andersson web site, which this came from, is a spoof. A very funny one, and very, very well done, but it's a joke. It's not real!

http://www.jamesandersson.com/index.html

There is no pilot named James Andersson in the Red Bull Air Racing circuit.

The aircraft in the video is an Akrotech Giles G-300, an experimental aircraft of which only one was ever built (the company suspended operation shortly after building the prototype). The original is still around, but in a completely different paint scheme, which looks nothing like the one in the video.

http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=119519

There is, however, a popular RC model of the aircraft:

http://www.fun-key.com.hk/giles60.htm

The video was done by a clothing company named KillaThrill (whose logo appears on the aircraft in the video):

http://www.reggiepaulk.com/2008/10/killathrill-generates-huge-buzz-with.html

http://www.killathrill.de/start.action

BTW, if it was real, the aircraft wouldn't bounce like an RC model on landing...

As soon as I had the pilot's supposed name, I pulled up lots of other hits talking about this and they all bascially corroborate that assessment.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

yeah, I've been digging around, too. Too bad! Hmmm. Trying to decide if I should just delete the post.....

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I dunno; I'd probably just edit the post and take it as an opportunity to talk about viral marketing a bit.

[submarine-bells.livejournal.com]

My first reaction on looking at that video is "it's a fake". It doesn't move like a real plane. A real plane without a wing wouldn't fly *or* land like that. My expectation is that a plane losing a wing would continue spiraling down the way it started to immediately after the wing came off in the clip, until it ploughed into the ground with an almighty CRASH.