The Art Neuro Weblog

But Is it Safe?
There used to be a 'grip' who worked for the Australian Film Television & Radio School by the name of Tony Bosch. he was a truly charming, wonderful man with a down-to-earth blokiness that just totally pissed off the femo-nazis in the sad place. For those who don't know what a grip does, he/she delivers the complex mechanical structures that support the camera moves. Quite often, they will be the ones doing the most lifting and the most dangerous stuff on a film set apart from pyrotechnics and stunts.

Tony said, the most insulting thing for a professional grip to hear from a novice director or producer was the phrase, "But is it Safe?"
"Well of course it's safe. It's my job to make it safe!" he would thunder over the beers we would have at the end of the day in the sound department. Eventually, when the fridge in the sound department was shut down, he had it moved to the staging department so the tradition of end-of-working-day-beer-drinking could continue.
In that spirit, people are asking Zero Gravity about their Zero-G joy-ride, "But is it safe?"

Zero Gravity looked at several possible aircraft, including the Boeing 707, 727, 737, and 757, as well as the DC-9. They settled on the Boeing 727-200, which is used extensively as a cargo carrier. One reason for choosing this aircraft is its similarity in size to the KC-135, but with a large cargo door that allows for easy alteration of the interior. Other advantages were the availability of replacement parts and the fact that the plane's design allowed for a smooth parabola.

The Boeing 727 is certified to withstand between +2.5g and -1g. A parabolic flight aboard G-Force One goes from +1.8g to 0g, well within the tolerances of the Boeing 727.Still, the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) had to approve Amerijet International to operate such flights for the general public. That process, which included evaluations of subsystems and about 1,000 parabolas in test flights, took nearly two years.

“I think the main concern was with the aircraft frame,” said Paul Takemoto, an FAA spokesperson.

To determine the stresses that parabolic flight might impart on the frame, strain gauges were implanted in G-Force One's outer shell. This helped engineers construct an elaborate computer model to simulate the wear and tear multiple parabolic flights could induce. After viewing all the relevant data and documents, the FAA determined that no structural modifications to the 727 were necessary.

The thing is, they don't have Tony Bosch working for them, so I guess I'm a little worried after all.

- Art Neuro