flying-gamer
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2013
- Messages
- 33
- Reaction score
- 12
For those that haven't seen it, Discovery Channel has a show called Airplane Repo in which they portray high drama aircraft repossessions on behalf of lenders. Some things just felt overly dramatized the first couple episodes I watched, and then I noticed in fine print during the credits that they purposefully do a few things to increase the drama.
Last night though was the first time I knew for sure what they had done because they showed a repo of a Piper Cub. The first big thing was a fuel emergency. The pilot said they were running out of fuel, and they kept showing the wet compass for some reason. They happened to be going within about 10 degrees of east, so it probably looked like a fuel gauge to the uninitiated. In shots over the cowling, the float wire was still about 5 or 6 inches up - compared to the Cub I fly, that would be at least 45 minutes if not more than an hour of fuel left.
The thing that really got me is that they kept teasing that the engine was going to quit during the landing. Sure enough it did but not from lack of fuel. The trick there was that as they got over the threshold, they show the pilot reaching up to his left, followed by a clicking sound. I'm sure we all know what he did, but most non-pilots are going to assume he was just doing normal pilot stuff.
It was amusing and put the entertainment of the show into a different level: laugh at the fakeness.
Last night though was the first time I knew for sure what they had done because they showed a repo of a Piper Cub. The first big thing was a fuel emergency. The pilot said they were running out of fuel, and they kept showing the wet compass for some reason. They happened to be going within about 10 degrees of east, so it probably looked like a fuel gauge to the uninitiated. In shots over the cowling, the float wire was still about 5 or 6 inches up - compared to the Cub I fly, that would be at least 45 minutes if not more than an hour of fuel left.
The thing that really got me is that they kept teasing that the engine was going to quit during the landing. Sure enough it did but not from lack of fuel. The trick there was that as they got over the threshold, they show the pilot reaching up to his left, followed by a clicking sound. I'm sure we all know what he did, but most non-pilots are going to assume he was just doing normal pilot stuff.
It was amusing and put the entertainment of the show into a different level: laugh at the fakeness.
