Midair Repair: Difference between revisions
m
clean up, replaced: [[DuckTales → [[DuckTales (1987)
(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.MidairRepair 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.MidairRepair, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
m (clean up, replaced: [[DuckTales → [[DuckTales (1987)) |
||
(11 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|"Who on board is smart enough to fix the propeller, but stupid enough to climb out there to do it?"|'''Scrooge McDuck''', ''[[
Our heroes are in an aircraft, falling. Perhaps they've been shot down, or maybe their vehicle didn't work in the first place. No need to worry, though. Someone (usually the [[Gadgeteer Genius]] or [[Mad Scientist]] of the cast) will get everything back into working order. In mid-air. Before hitting the ground.
Line 8:
Depending on how fast you're falling when you finally pull out of the dive, you might be acting under the assumption that it's [[Not the Fall That Kills You]].
{{examples
== [[Advertising]] ==
Line 14:
== [[Anime]] & [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[
* In an episode of ''[[Code Geass]] R2'', not only was Kallen's [[Humongous Mecha]] repaired as it was falling into the ocean, it was ''upgraded''.
** By shooting the necessary parts at it from a submarine. [[Rule of Cool|In Missiles]]. [[What Do You Mean
* In ''[[
{{quote|
'''Ikki:''' [[Talking Is a Free Action|Uh... Three seconds... I'd guess]]?
'''Kururu:''' [[Oh Crap|Three seconds]]?! (thinking during two-page spread of her spilling tools from her backpack) [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|In that case... I've got more than enough time!]]
(And Kururu ''very quickly'' rebuilds Ikki's skates.) }}
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Played with in ''[[
* In ''[[Justice Society of America|JSA Secret Files]]'' #1, Speed Saunders does a mid-air patch job on his hot air balloon after it springs a leak while aloft.
Line 33:
* In ''Riders Of The Storm'' (one of Dennis Hopper's lesser known works), one character has to crawl out onto the wing of a B-29-cum-pirate radio station to fix one of the engines inflight.
* Parodied in ''[[Ice Age|Ice Age 3]]'', when Buck performs mouth-to-mouth on a pterosaur knocked unconscious by a mid-air collision.
* [[Star Wars|The Millenium Falcon]] is the [[Trope Namer]] for [[What a Piece of Junk!]] for a reason, especially in the [[Expanded Universe]].
* The trope name is basically the job description for R2 units.
* Parodied in ''[[Hot Shots]]'' when Topper's dad tried to make repairs to his fighter as it was crashing. This included everything from stapling sheet metal onto the nose to holding the wing on by hooking his feet to the fuselage.
Line 40:
== [[Literature]] ==
* In the [[World War II]] novel ''Hornet Flight'', the hero has to refuel his plane in mid-air.
* In ''[[Farmer
{{quote|
"You mean--"
"I mean that the assistant chief engineer would succeed to the position of chief a few minutes later. Chief engineers are very carefully chosen, Bill, and not just for their technical knowledge." }}
* In the ''[[Virgin New Adventures|Doctor Who Expanded Universe]]'' novel ''The Dying Days'', the
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
Line 51:
** In the Tok'ra's defense, however, they're not building the ships. They're stealing them from the Goa'uld, and as a result can't pick and choose, and can't find lots of spare parts.
** This problem isn't limited to the Tok'ra, however. The human-built ships aren't much better. For example, on the official maiden voyage of the first human spaceship, the ''Prometheus'', the hyperdrive overloaded and had to be ejected before destroying the ship. And the list goes on...
* Because the TARDIS is the [[Cool Ship]] version of [[The Alleged Car]], [[Doctor Who
* In a first season episode of ''[[MacGyver]]'', Mac uses a map to patch his hot air balloon when it springs a leak after being shot.
** In the later episode "Rock the Cradle", Mac has to unjam the landing gear on a plane as Jack Dalton is bringing it in for a landing. He succeeds, but falls out the plane (he is wearing a parachute).
Line 61:
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* There's a hilarious example of this in ''[[Girl Genius]]'', when Gilgamesh and Agatha are first testing Gilgamesh's [[Flying Machine]] (or rather, as Agatha sourly points out, "[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20030623 It's a falling machine. I'm so impressed.]") by starting from Baron Wulfenbach's airship. As they both slip into Spark-mode, their growing excitement about repairing and upgrading the ship in mid-flight almost fatally distracts them from the approaching doom.
{{quote|
'''Agatha:''' ...Ummm... Of course, we ''are'' still falling.
'''Gilgamesh:''' What? Oh, ''that''. This wire was loose. }}
Line 70:
== [[Real Life]] ==
* In [[Real Life]], NASA does occasionally send up astronauts to repair stuff, which is kind of in midair by default and falling at an atrocious speed. Just not in danger of hitting the ground.
** Wouldn't a
*** They have to bring their own.
** Well, as [[The
** The crew of Apollo 13 effected a successful repair of their craft and safely returned to Earth after one of their Oxygen tanks exploded (as seen in [[Apollo 13|the film]]).
* In [[Real Life]], Zeppelin crews would routinely have to do this after too many engine failures. The good news is that airships are far more forgiving of engine failures than airplanes are.
** Additionaly, many older multi-engine airplanes (mostly made during/before the 1950s) were actually ''designed'' so a mechanic could access the engines mid-flight through a cramped tunnel burried in the wing. Even earlier airplanes (First World War vintage) considered it a matter of routine for the mechanic to do a wing-walk to maintain the notably finicky engines while the plane was underway. These days engines are so reliable that a breakdown is considered truely exceptional rather than uncommon.
*** Not that today's airplane engineers like to take any chances on that account: recognizing the impossibility of midair repairs on today's engines, it is required by FAA law that today's multi-engine planes have enough engine power to remain in control in the event of catastrophic loss of an engine. Maybe not enough control to get where you were planning on going, but at least enough to make your way to the nearest major airport.
**** Related to this requirement is a requirement for airliners that intend to fly transoceanic routes: Essentially, they have to be airworthy with an engine out (which is why many older airliners had four engines). The requirement allowing ''twin'' engined airliners to fly such routes is called '''ETOPS''', '''E'''xtended-range '''T'''win-engine '''O'''perational '''P'''erformance '''S'''tandards. [[Fun
* The [
{{reflist}}
Line 86:
[[Category:Sublime Rhyme]]
[[Category:Midair Repair]]
|