Tornado Intercept Vehicle

[tallguynate]

I just watched this program on the National Geographic channel about this guy who is making an IMAX film about tornados. He created this vehicle so that he could drive into the center of one and film from inside the vortex.

Stats:

"In making the TIV, Tornado Intercept Vehicle, we took a Ford 450 super duty truck and striped it down to the engine and chassis. Building back up, we used 1/4” steel for the flooring and tubing that makes up the inner “skeleton”. The exterior skin is 1/8” thick steel with the side windows made of 1/2” thick Lexan polycarbonate material. The material for the front windshields is 1 1/4” thick Lexan. The driver compartment and the area where the cameraman operates are double walled with another layer of 1/8” thick steel."

[NuclearCrap]

Can't he just borrow a tank from the government? He's gonna get killed driving that thing inside a tornado.

He might also get his ass kicked by the police driving that sh*t around.

[TVR IS KING]

How much does it weigh?

[drakkie]

Can't he just borrow a tank from the government? He's gonna get killed driving that thing inside a tornado.

just borrow or buy an old tank,why make it yourrslef dangerous and difficult ?

[Sackalack GT]

Yeah, I watched that too, the guy had to mortgage his house to afford it, it leaked when they were parked in the middle of one of the tornadoes, and the cops only pulled them over to say hi and good luck, but to his credit, it worked.
Best part of the show was when they had a couple of redneck amateur storm chasers with a little toyota pickup and a tornado device they had made from scratch, it was designed to film the inside of a tornado, but when they managed to get it in the path of one they had the cameras set on autofocus so they filmed the water droplets forming on the glass, not the actual tornado, which passed directly over it.