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Strom Chasers killed by OK Tornado

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DrPizza said:
Those people aren't serious, are they? If there's anything more dangerous than trees flying around in the high wind, it's the hunks of sheet metal that'll be torn off those vehicles if someone passes gas, let alone a tornado.
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Yea, the F-5's can pick up and hurl a damm semi, and all those flat body panels are just gonna make it worse IMO, more flat space for the wind to push against..
 
Just thought of something, would be cool to build a big sphere made out of some kind of very thick flexible non shatter plastic that is transparent, and inside would be a camera that can roll inside, and be set to point up or any configured direction. Then send that in the tornado. It would also have a beacon so it can be recovered after.

Would have to be one hell of a tough material though.
 
BUTCH1 said:
Yea, the F-5's can pick up and hurl a damm semi, and all those flat body panels are just gonna make it worse IMO, more flat space for the wind to push against..
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Semi cabs? It'd take a hell of a hit. Semi trailers? Well, yeah...a standard rectangular monicoque trailer is not all that tough, has sides that are 90* to the ground, and I would generally imagine it would get ripped apart from the inside out once the exterior is breached. If the fifth wheel holds up, it would probably act like a nice sail to lift the cab. But the 'truck' part is still a good 15,000 pounds plus. Not quite the same as the white truck above...that might be 6,000, I'd guess?

The goal with the tornado chaser kajiggers it to provide a stable base and deflect the winds over it. So that one that the guy above is talking about, with it's wide base, lack of ground clearance, and tapered sides, has a pretty good chance if done right.

The things that look like a child molester van with scrap metal stuck to it with sheet metal screws...notsomuch.
 
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ScoobMaster said:
Say what you will about their construction, but Sean Casey's TIV 2 (the 2nd generation of the top picture in the post above mine) just survived an intercept with a EF3/EF4 tornado just a few days ago on 5/27 in Kansas.

Check out this INSANE footage from inside the TIV2: INSIDE A TORNADO - FULL VERSION - TIV2 INTERCEPT

That hydraulic machinery noise you hear at 0:52 as Sean yells "go floor!, go floor!" are hydraulic cylinders driving large metal spikes into the ground at all four corners of the vehicle while it simultaneously lowers to the ground so no air can pass underneath it and create lift.
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It seemed to perform well as it didn't move, seems the deploy-able anchors are a good idea, one issue that still remains and will always remain is a large, heavy object that could impact it @200MPH and compromise the cabin..
 
phucheneh said:
I like seeing the vehicles these guys use.

They make the whole 'I have no skills' thing abundantly clear. They are not engineers; they are not fabricators. They are dudes who attempt to make a living off of the verification of such insightful scientific theories as: 'tornadoes are windy.'

Wish they would instead devote their efforts to figuring out how to tell us when it's going to rain with more than 20% accuracy.
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Yes, he was an engineer and his team was full of meteorologists and other scientists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWISTEX No doubt these guys were addicted to chasing tornados, but science was their goal here. They have a team of vehicles manned with students and professors.

phucheneh said:
Damn. That truck looks a lot more simplistic and to-the-point than the 'tornado tanks' that I was referring to. I always thought it was funny seeing their random poorly-welded bits of steel tubing and sheetmetal, and was honestly surprised that they seemed to hold together.

But for what it has in professional appearance (i.e. looks like it might be driven by a scientist instead of a crazy person), that truck doesn't look like it was ever meant to be near an actual tornado. Holy slab-sided death machine...surely they must have felt crosswinds in that before that would make a normal person say 'maybe this isn't the most aerodynamic configuration...'
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Right, the TWISTEX team only deployed probes in front of tornados and that was their goal. They only got close enough to a tornado to have a good chance of it going over their probe. There were many times on the Stormchasers show where his team just stopped chasing a tornado because it got too big or the weather cell started getting more unpredictable and dangerous. They'd pull over to the side of the road, and the armored vehicles from the internet video teams would fly past them to attempt a tornado intercept. He was an extremely cautious guy on the show which makes it so sad here. Plenty of times he called off a chase with the young guys in protest. Of all the guys on the show, he's the last one I thought would get killed in a tornado.
 
NikolaeVarius said:
And expensive... and impossible to figure out on the fly current wind conditions, and also extremely expensive.
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And making a show about them isn't? Are you seriously telling me they couldn't get funding to create a drone? Riiiight. There are already drones that monitor hurricanes according to a friend. I don't see why these idiots couldn't create something similar to keep themselves out of harm's way.
 
Mixolydian said:
Because storm chasers are idiots. They purposely put themselves in harm's way just to get a thrill.
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I think it's even worse than that. They love to watch destruction and this is their way to get their rocks off while trying to cover it in the guise of science. When you listen to these guys describing the action they flat out love seeing tornadoes plow into buildings and demolish homes, then have to keep trying to tone down their arousal.

WOOHOO!! We have a tornado on the ground!
Look at the power of that thing!!!! It just reduced a school to rubble!!!
[size=-6]oh those poor kids[/size]
It just tore through a trailer park!!! Look at the carnage!!!
[size=-6]ummm, I hope nobody was hurt[/size]
It just knocked down 7 houses in a span of 4 seconds, this is the greatest footage we've ever shot!!!
[size=-6]It'll be useful for research, yeah, that's the ticket[/size]
 
GagHalfrunt said:
I think it's even worse than that. They love to watch destruction and this is their way to get their rocks off while trying to cover it in the guise of science. When you listen to these guys describing the action they flat out love seeing tornadoes plow into buildings and demolish homes, then have to keep trying to tone down their arousal.

WOOHOO!! We have a tornado on the ground!
Look at the power of that thing!!!! It just reduced a school to rubble!!!
[size=-6]oh those poor kids[/size]
It just tore through a trailer park!!! Look at the carnage!!!
[size=-6]ummm, I hope nobody was hurt[/size]
It just knocked down 7 houses in a span of 4 seconds, this is the greatest footage we've ever shot!!!
[size=-6]It'll be useful for research, yeah, that's the ticket[/size]
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Some people are what I like to call enlightened post-humanists. They realize that humanity is a failed experiment by mother earth, and await until she reclaims what is rightfully hers. Vegans willfully destroying their bodies and stormchasers can both be classified as such.
 
momeNt said:
Some people are what I like to call enlightened post-humanists. They realize that humanity is a failed experiment by mother earth, and await until she reclaims what is rightfully hers. Vegans willfully destroying their bodies and stormchasers can both be classified as such.
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I think that level of introspection is far beyond them. They're just the same as people who go to NASCAR races hoping to see a crash, they root for destruction. The worse it gets the better they like it and they're sitting there praying that the thing intensifies and goes right for the most populated area because that would result in the coolest video.
 
BUTCH1 said:
It seemed to perform well as it didn't move, seems the deploy-able anchors are a good idea, one issue that still remains and will always remain is a large, heavy object that could impact it @200MPH and compromise the cabin..
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This.

If a huge house drops on it.
 
momeNt said:
Some people are what I like to call enlightened post-humanists. They realize that humanity is a failed experiment by mother earth, and await until she reclaims what is rightfully hers. Vegans willfully destroying their bodies and stormchasers can both be classified as such.
Click to expand...



Looks like we found the only person in ATOT to have seen After Earth. :awe:
 
Nintendesert said:
Looks like we found the only person in ATOT to have seen After Earth. :awe:
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I have not seen the movie, M. Night saw to that. Regardless, I firmly believe that post-humanism exists and I'm still on the fence about whether or not it is the right path. There may come a time when protecting the Earth =/= protecting humanity, at this point, we must choose to destroy humans to save the Earth for the rest of the life which is able to live peacefully with the Earth.
 
momeNt said:
I have not seen the movie, M. Night saw to that. Regardless, I firmly believe that post-humanism exists and I'm still on the fence about whether or not it is the right path. There may come a time when protecting the Earth =/= protecting humanity, at this point, we must choose to destroy humans to save the Earth for the rest of the life which is able to live peacefully with the Earth.
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As long as you're volunteering to go first, believe what you want. :biggrin:
 
momeNt said:
I have not seen the movie, M. Night saw to that. Regardless, I firmly believe that post-humanism exists and I'm still on the fence about whether or not it is the right path. There may come a time when protecting the Earth =/= protecting humanity, at this point, we must choose to destroy humans to save the Earth for the rest of the life which is able to live peacefully with the Earth.
Click to expand...

I believe we were created by aliens.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Just thought of something, would be cool to build a big sphere made out of some kind of very thick flexible non shatter plastic that is transparent, and inside would be a camera that can roll inside, and be set to point up or any configured direction. Then send that in the tornado. It would also have a beacon so it can be recovered after.

Would have to be one hell of a tough material though.
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Simple - create a protective shield composed of Nokias.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Just thought of something, would be cool to build a big sphere made out of some kind of very thick flexible non shatter plastic that is transparent, and inside would be a camera that can roll inside, and be set to point up or any configured direction. Then send that in the tornado. It would also have a beacon so it can be recovered after.

Would have to be one hell of a tough material though.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twister_(1996_film)
 
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