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Predators and Prey

Sairn

Sairn

Sairn the Majestic
Cosmic-FS said:
*looks around the thread*
I see we are in the customary post round nap time. I shall attempt to wake everyone up with coffee.
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*Perks up for the smell of coffee*
 
DRGN Juno

DRGN Juno

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA -Sukhoi, 2020
*Notices an absence of facts*

On July 23, 2006, a ship called the MV Cougar Ace listed severely to port near the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, while carrying 4,703 brand-new Mazdas bound for the US and Canada. The ship tipped over after the crew performed what's called a ballast purge, which involves emptying the ship's ballasts of old seawater and taking on new water to avoid contaminating local marine life. This is a simple enough procedure. But for whatever reason, the crew had purged the ballasts on one side, but failed to allow the purging ballasts to take on any water when they did so. The end result of someone not doing their one job was that the ship listed uncontrollably to port, finally resting at an angle of 60 degrees.

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Despite the severe list, the worst injury in the ship’s crew of 23 was a single broken ankle. Due to the rough weather outside, it took 23 hours until the US Coast Guard (accompanied by two Alaska Air National Guard Pave Hawk (HH-60) helicopters) came to rescue the crew. The one injury was flown to Anchorage for treatment, and insurance companies began evaluating what to do with the ship.

The USCG evaluations showed that only 41 of the 4,703 cars on board had broken free. Everything else showed little to no damage. But because liability is a hell of a motivator, Mazda decided they wouldn't sell any of the cars on the ship. Ideas began circulating – donate the cars to tech schools as training models, or donate them to movie studios for the Michael Bay treatment. Neither of those two are uncommon occurrences; I remember our high school had a 1997 Pontiac Trans Am that was donated after a smaller scale shipping accident (I think the truck it was on rolled over or something). Anyway, there were people offering to take the cars off Mazda’s hands with the understanding that the cars would be destroyed once they were done.

In the end, Mazda decided that even donating the cars was too risky. And on December 15, they announced that every vehicle was to be destroyed. And when they said destroyed, they went to extreme lengths. A company called Pacific Car Crushing was given a special tool by Mazda to detonate the airbags, and fluids were drained, as is standard with the auto recycling industry.

But then Mazda had the employees thoroughly destroy every component they could. Body panels were cut up or had holes drilled in them. Glass was smashed. Wheels were crushed out of round by a special machine. Even tires, which aren't likely to be affected by exposure to water or sitting at weird angles, were punctured. Everything that could possibly be reused was deliberately destroyed, because Mazda wouldn't see the end of it if they let a single potentially water-damaged part into the wild.

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Due to sheer volume, it took until May of 2008 for the operation to finish. While Mazda was insured for the nearly $103M in lost product, their US sales were down from 76,599 to 68,457. Yes, this gap is greater than the total sum of vehicles lost on the Cougar Ace, but it made their off-year measurably worse. Mazda’s shrink rate leading into the 2008 recession was closer to 4.5%, while in 2006 they posted a downward spike of 11.9%. As far as my sources go, the MV Cougar Ace is still largest cargo loss of any car carrier incident. The MV Golden Ray capsized in 2019 with a 7,700 car capacity, though apparently only 4,200 cars were loaded, just shy of the Cougar Ace’s loading.

 
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TR273

TR273

Pirate Fox Mom
Film Fact:
Continuity is a problem, films shot over several months need to insure sequential scenes make sense. Examples would be Actor A and B are sitting at a table eating A is holding a wine glass, in all connected shots A had better be still holding the wine glass and it better have the same amount of wine in it, or an actor has a limp and they need to limp with the same leg all the time. In the Bond film ‘The Living Daylights’ continuity screwed up the quite a big way. During the final action sequence Bond steals a four engine transport plane (A C130 if my guess is right) however during the airborne fight a two engine aircraft is being used. Generally careful shooting hid this fact but there is a scene where the villain is kicked from the plane and as he falls the aircraft can be seen clearly with only two engines.
(Unfortunately my screen capture software isn’t working at the moment but you can probably find this on Youtube)
 
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DRGN Juno

DRGN Juno

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA -Sukhoi, 2020
TR273 said:
Film Fact:
Continuity is a problem, films shot over several months need to insure sequential scenes make sense. Examples would be Actor A and B are sitting at a table eating A is holding a wine glass, in all connected shots A had better be still holding the wine glass and it better have the same amount of wine in it, or an actor has a limp and they need to limp with the same leg all the time. In the Bond film ‘The Living Daylights’ continuity screwed up the quite a big way. During the final action sequence Bond steals a four engine transport plane (A C130 if my guess is right) however during the airborne fight a two engine aircraft is being used. Generally careful shooting hid this fact but there is a scene where the villain is kicked from the plane and as he falls the aircraft can be seen clearly with only two engines.
(Unfortunately my screen capture software isn’t working at the moment but you can probably find this on Youtube)
Click to expand...

After some Googling, the internet says you're spot on about the original being a C-130, and the "replacement" is allegedly a Fairchild C-123. Even the tailfin is completely different.

500


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TR273

TR273

Pirate Fox Mom
DRGN Juno said:
After some Googling, the internet says you're spot on about the original being a C-130, and the "replacement" is allegedly a Fairchild C-123. Even the tailfin is completely different.

500


C-130J-30.jpg.pc-adaptive.full.medium.jpeg
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Apparently when they were shooting that sequence they were in the states and C130’s were a bit rare and expensive to hire so they went with the smaller plane mostly because it was the same colour as the c-130 they had been using on location in Morocco (which was standing in for Afghanistan.)
 
DRGN Juno

DRGN Juno

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA -Sukhoi, 2020
TR273 said:
Apparently when they were shooting that sequence they were in the states and C130’s were a bit rare and expensive to hire so they went with the smaller plane mostly because it was the same colour as the c-130 they had been using on location in Morocco (which was standing in for Afghanistan.)
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Expensive, perhaps. Rare, no. These things are a dime a dozen, and the USAF has been using them since 1956. That said, availability might've been an issue if there was a major operation going on when the film was in production.
 
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