One of my life’s missions is to drive, fly, sail, and ride as many vehicles as possible before the little Smart Fortwo engine that runs my body finally runs out of oil pressure. Admittedly, I probably don’t fear the vehicles I maybe should because there are a lot of bad ideas that I would drive in an instant. So, if you happen to have a Hayabusa-powered go-kart, you know where my email is.
Yet, I think I found the one vehicle most of you wouldn’t touch, even if you were wearing one of Iron Man’s suits. Yesterday, I wrote about the ultralight helicopter calling itself the cheapest helicopter you could buy with your money. The Mirocopter SCH-2A is a $37,500 assemblage of scaffolding with a Chinese engine and rotating bits ready to remove your limbs. I love it, but Elhigh isn’t convinced:
I have often divided kitplane pilots into two easily defined classes:
1) I Love To Fly, Am Good With Tools And Have Only Small Money
and
2) I Want To Die In The Most Expensively Predictable Way Possible.
Yonder framing contraption – and “contraption” comes to the fore a lot when talking about homebuilt aircraft – introduces a new third class:
3) I Am Going To Die And No One Will Be Surprised That It Happened, Only That It Took This Long.
Cheap Bastard made me spit out my Powerade:
“A Few Concerns”
Oh I have all the rest of the concerns!
Phantom Pedal Syndrome turned the laughing into crying laughing:
There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. … Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.
However, resident car designer Adrian Clarke wins with the simplest response:
Hahahahahaha fuck no.
This morning, Mark asked you to cast the hero car for a Netflix show involving a private investigator. Stig’s Cousin went deep:
I’m bored so I’ll play along:
LTD. Driven by Cordell Gunn, Jr., or as vile individuals who commit crimes against the postal service know him, Gunn, PI… Postal inspector.
As a child, he dreamed of becoming a rural letter carrier like his father, Cordell Gunn, Sr. He accompanied his father along his route, seated in the back seat of a brown ’83 Ford LTD. He watched with admiration as his father drove from mailbox to mailbox delivering letters and vital packages to the denizens of rural Nevada.
Unfortunately, a misdirected delivery changed the course of his life. On the day of Cordell Sr’s 39th birthday, a package arrived at the Gunn residence that listed their address and had “happy birthday!” written across the top. Cordell Sr. was a popular man so he assumed it was a present from one of his friends. He gathered his wife and son around to see what treasures were within. He opened the box. To his horror, Cordell Sr. immediately noticed the package contained a bomb set to explode 3 seconds after opening (in a cruel twist of fate, his neighbor at 1424 was a mafia boss in hiding who was targeted by an assassin who misread his address as 1420). In his final heroic act, Cordell Sr. protected his son from harm. Cordell Sr., along with his wife, died that day, leaving Cordell Jr. an orphan.
Cordell Jr. swore revenge. Cordell Gunn, Jr. vowed to become Gunn, Postal Inspector.
He attended the best law enforcement academies. He mastered, karate, muay thai, taekwondo, thai chi, and many other disciplines. He became an expert marksman with his powerful Smith & Wesson .500 revolver.
Today, he drives across the country in his father’s ’83 Ford LTD fighting all forms of postal crime. Letter theft. Package theft. Mail fraud. Mailbox baseball. Murder. No crime is too small, and no crime is too big for Gunn, PI.
He is ruthless. He is fearsome. He is relentless. Neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom of night… will keep this man from kicking ass. If you even think of committing a postal crime, he will go postal on your ass. The last thing you will hear is his catch phrase “return to sender” followed by the loud report of his gun.
He is Gunn, PI.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Gunn P.I. I want to see. I also want to see the inevitable team up with freelance insurance investigator Johnny Dollar (if you don’t know, learn).
Gunn, PI needs to be optioned and franchised.
I would watch every episode of Gunn, P.I.
You mean there weren’t any Pontiac Aztek available that people wouldn’t be caught dead in??
I’m shocked!
Caught dead in? That is a holy grail.
Even Walter W gave up on the Aztek
You can never go wrong quoting Douglas Adams.
Fun fact: when I finished reading “Life, the Universe, and Everything” as a kid, I was so engrossed in Adams’ fictional universe that the instructions for flying made a certain amount of sense. I remember walking out to the brow of a low hill on our farm and contemplating an attempt. As a pain-averse youth, after a minute or two I very sensibly walked back into the house for a snack.
Oh sure, blame the comment for spitting out Powerade.
Powerade…
“It has the electrolytes plants crave”
Every passing day that movie turns a little more into a documentary.
That sounds like Newman!
“Of course nobody NEEDS mail!”
“I’ll tell you a little secret about zip codes…they’re MEANINGLESS!”
If you need someone to make stupid decisions like flying that thing, I volunteer. I’m definitely in the third class.
Douglas Adams (author of the inaccurately-named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy) should come back and haunt PPS for “borrowing” his material. 😛
Still, there’s nothing like a good, unexpected Douglas Adams quote. The spawning of the whale into the stratosphere by the improbability drive is still one of my favorite pages for sheer goofiness… That thing needs a big name like ouuu… Roooun.. ground! Yes, that’s it, I wonder if it’ll be my friend!?!
I use the SEP cloaking field explanation on a regular basis.
.
Now wait just a minute. I was under the impression that Autopian staff are disallowed from winning COTD. This is a terrible example of gamesmanship and clear conflict of interest. I will be filing a complaint with my local COTD chapter.
This was not a fair COTD.
Totally Rigged.
Everyone says so.
Your rules cannot stop me.
I made an exception since Adrian is a contributor rather than a full time staffer. 🙂
Listen, I appreciate your showmanship, but this brinksmanship is just poor sportsmanship.
Stop the steeeel