Re: Beeman\'s Gum - What is it?
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You're absolutely right. People of today don't appreciate real movie stunts versus digital enhancing that makes anything possible. Like in Airport 1975....cheezy movie, but the helo flying ahead of the 747 and really lowering a guy to the fuselage in midair (prior to cutting to the cockpit mock-up where the real hole in the fuselage is), but that stunt was real and dangerous. Not many people of today seemingly appreciate that kind of effort.
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Or how about the original Flight of the Phoenix, where Paul Mantz was killed flying a "homebuilt" Phoenix.
http://stripe.colorado.edu/~steinerd/Phoenix.html
And maybe the greatest aviation stunt of all time was Cliffhanger:
CLIFFHANGER (1993)
A thief defies the friendly skies with an airborne plane-to-plane transfer.
Assignment: Exit the tail of a DC-9 at 15,000 feet and slide down to the open door of a smaller JetStar getaway plane, clinging to a wind-buffeted connecting rope that might whip you into the clouds—or a jet engine. In an age of digital fakery, this high-altitude feat earns its wings as the greatest one-man aerial stunt in modern movies.
How it went down: A prime example of how the best-planned stunt can encounter the unforeseen. During one rehearsal, flying at 140 knots (any slower and the engines could have stalled), stunt coordinator and aerial stunt expert Simon Crane was winched out from the tail of the DC-9, briefly hit a patch of dead air, and was twice slammed into the plane’s tail, forcing him to release from the rope and deploy his parachute. For the actual filming of the stunt high over the Rocky Mountains, that part went off as planned, but when he neared the JetStar, the weighted end of the rope looped around its wing, hindering Crane’s ability to hook up with the rescue winch being manned by someone inside the smaller plane. Suspended midair for more than a minute, Crane was growing fatigued in the subzero wind when the pilot chose to steer the plane toward him. Miraculously, Crane made it inside the hatch, getting the all-important shot, but was immediately yanked back outside. As the crew listened to him sliding along the top of the plane, he released, missed being sucked into the roaring engine by about six feet, and blew over the tail into the wild blue yonder. He parachuted down and was picked up by a helicopter—his balls approximately 84 percent bigger than before the stunt.
