Man accidently ejects himself from plane

by Jamie Rhein on

This is a what NOT to do story if you’re ever in a Pilatus PC-7 Mk II. Do not, I repeat, do not, use the black and yellow handle located between your legs to steady yourself. Not even if you’re pretending to be Tom Cruise in the movie Top Gun. Pull on that handle and you’ll find yourself out of the plane before you can say, “Ooops, I shouldn’t have done that.”

That handle is what the pilots and passengers can use to activate the ejector seat in order to shoot out from the plane in case of an emergency.

In the case of this recent mishap, the passenger was on a joy ride with an expert pilot of South Africa’s Silver Falcons air display team when he pulled the lever during one of the maneuvers.

And whoosh!, there he went–the two rockets attached to the back of his chair catapulting him right out of the plane 100m up into the wide open sky.

Luckily, the ejector seat is designed to release a parachute so the man safely floated back to solid ground near the Langebaanweg airfield not far from Cape Town, South Africa.

If one could be assured that you’d land as safely as this guy did, you have to admit this does sound like it would be a blast in more ways than one.

I wonder if pilots will now post a sign in front of the passenger seat saying, “DO NOT pull the yellow and black lever. DON”T EVEN TOUCH IT. Ever.” [news.com.au]

*The Pilatus PC-7 in the photo is from the Royal Netherlands Air Force

Spring painting for the Eiffel Tower: It takes gallons

by Jamie Rhein on

Every 7 years the Eiffel Tower is painted by hand. Although this icon attracts people by the droves to Paris and prompts folks like Tom Cruise to use it as a romantic backdrop for a marriage proposal, the Parisians don’t have much to do with painting it.

Actually, they don’t have anything to do with it, but probably do what they can to avoid getting paint dropped or splattered on them when they pass by.

This year, Romanians and Greeks will wield hand-held, small circular brushes to coat every bit of it with fresh paint. The specialized paint called “Eiffel Tower brown” is Norwegian.

Although the paint color has varied over the years, the painting method has remained the same ever since 1889. The color has stayed brown, however, since 1968 when it was decided that particular color works best with the skyline in Paris.

The statistics for this paint job are impressive.

According to the AP article, twenty-five people will use 66 tons of paint, 35 miles of climbing rope, and 18 months to do the job.

I’d say that the people who will be doing the painting will have an excellent view of Paris from the top as long as they don’t look down.

Vintage train stations: Where have all the trains gone?

by Jamie Rhein on

My art car friend, Greg Phelps knows a lot about funky travel. He still talks about that crane hotel in the Netherlands that he and his girlfriend stayed in earlier this year after Gadling’s suggestion. Today he sent me a travel tidbit that led me to train stations. Here is a Web page link that takes visitors around the U.S. via a combination of vintage postcards and photographs to the train stations with art deco architecture. There is an historical overview of each place, including what became of them all.

For example, Union Terminal in Cincinnati, a truly wonderful building now houses several vibrant museums, including the Museum of Natural History. Figuring out just the right use for this gem took patience. It failed as a shopping mall. My favorite part of the building is the front. Doesn’t it look like a huge 1930s radio? Inside, there are large mosaics that depict various scenes of American work life. Here’s a bit of film trivia: in the movie “Rain Man” a scene was shot here. It is after Tom Cruise picked up Dustin Hoffman from the institution and was figuring out how to take him to California. They went to Union Terminal in hopes of catching a train. You can briefly see the mosaics in the background. Amtrak does use a portion of the building, but from what I recall, the few trains that do pass through here do so at night.

Some of these art deco stations no longer exist since they have been taken down to make room for “progress.” Browsing the stations is an interesting look at how travel in the U.S. has changed.

Suri – Photo of the Millenium

by Iva Skoch on

I realize that I am–like–3 days late with this warning (I gotta get better with my celebrity gossip skills) but I simply couldn’t not say anything.

All of you profit-hungry freelance photographers out there, you can apparently leave your cameras at home from now on. Those $3Million some hoped to get for that first picture of one of this year’s premier celebrity babies is gone forever. Since Suri, Tom Cruise’s and Katie Holmes’ baby has finally been photographed and published by the October issue of Vanity Fair, I am guessing that the value of any snapshots taking “in the wild” has gone down tremendously.

Well, folks, there is always wedding photography.