Fact, fiction and the strangeness there of
Growing up in the seventies I saw a lot of weird stuff. One thing that I very much enjoyed was the TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man" with Lee Majors playing Steve Austin, the man barely alive. I was a big fan of the show when I was around the age of 8 years old. I held ambitions of my own to be severely maimed in a test flight gone wrong and then rebuilt at the tax payers expense. Can you imagine the reality of this Microsoft-NHS partnership?Until recently I hadn't realised that this series was based on a book called Cyborg by Martin Caidin. More interesting is the background to this book. In a previous life Martin Caidin was a aeronautics specialist (amongst other things) who was based at Rogers Dry Lake bed when Bruce Peterson plowed his M2-F2 into the turf (pictured left, just prior to the flight). The accident which befalls Steve Austin is in fact based on Bruce Petersons flight. The M2-F2 was a lifting body prototype and part of early developments in the design of the Space Shuttle. During his unpowered drop flight from a B-52, Peterson experienced what are known as PIOs or Pilot Induced Oscillations, an unfortunate and all too familiar characteristic of this design (here is a link to some NASA footage of the problem). Although able to correct this Peterson had lost too much speed and had to dive the craft to regain airspeed (remember it is gliding). This, together with a poorly positioned reference helicopter, resulted in the crash which saw the M2-F2 flip over end to end 6 times and Peterson badly injured. Ultimately he lost the sight in his right eye but was still able to fly. Caidin had his inspiration.
Remember the start of the Six Million Dollar Man?
"Oscar to NASA One." Oscar
"Roger." NASA One
"VP is armed switch is on." Victor
"Okay, Victor." Oscar
"Lighting Rods are armed switch is on. Here comes the starter, circuit breakers in." Victor
"We have separation." Victor
"Roger." Oscar
"Inboard and outboards are on. Come a-port with the sidestick." NASA One
"Oscar?" Oscar
"Uh, Roger." NASA One
"I've got a blowout vapor three!" Oscar
"Get your pitch to zero." NASA One
"Pitch is out I can't hold altitude." Oscar
"Direction alpha hold is off try trajectory emergency." NASA One
"Flight Comm! I can't hold it! She's breaking up, she's break..." Oscar
Most of this is actual communication between Peterson, NASA and the drop ship and the footage used in the opening sequence was actual footage of Petersons crash (that guy bashing his helmet on the canopy is Peterson). Week in week out Peterson had to relive it. Poor sod. But I bet his mates loved it.
posted by AntToeKnee at 1:38 PM
6 Comments:
"poor sod"...I enjoyed the post and thanks for visiting!
I loved The Six Million Dollar Man when I was a kid. Of course these days 6 million dollars would hardly buy you a hip replacement.
When I went through a phase of hating my name, as a kid, it was partly this programme that made me wish I'd been called Steve instead of Kim. I wrote more about that in my post A boy named Kim
Steve is just a cool name. I can't think of a crap Steve. Steve McQueen (coolest man ever to not be me), Steve Austin, Steve Jobs, Stevie Wonder, Stephen Dorf, Steve Lamacq, Steve Irwin.... ahhh, yeah forget about croc hunting Irwin.
I had the Steve Austin doll.
The one with a wee telescope in his head, a lever in his back to make his right arm give a "heil hitler" and a flap of rubber "skin" on his left fore-arm that rolled back to expose some removeable plastic "circuitry".
Even though I must've been, at the most, four when I had it, I still remember it pretty clearly.
Yeah wonderful toy. For some reason he came with a little plastic engine that he could lift but I fail to remember the episode in which Steve Austin worked in Quick Fit
I loved that show! and the Bionic Woman..um, and WonderWoman...hmmm I sense a theme here.
Cool in a way that he used it as a way to start the show though.
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