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Post by the light works on Mar 21, 2014 14:14:56 GMT
"A" team Van can FLY...... Or can it? In several episodes, the team Van, that black think with the red stripe, is seen flying through the air. Seriously?... Look, I used to drive a Ford Transit, about the closest UK equivalent would be the 90T350 Transit, and I know I CAN get serious air over humped-back bridges if you hit them hard enough... But Maybe a few inches height and maybe one or two yards at the most....?..... Now that thing flies for a dozen yards at head height. Over small ditches, from one side of the road to the other..... So, if you beef up the suspension to Baha type serious off road rally spec, maybe.... But otherwise, a Van that is designed to lug heavy loads will all four wheels on the road at all times.... Get Air?... I dont think so. Myth to be busted, if CAN you "Fly" a un-modified except cosmetic race tuneed one-ton (small van) as far as the "A" team do and get away with it?... Taking into consideration what can be done to a normal road going van. I suspect they used stunt doubles, and the stunt doubles had serious race seats 5 or 6 point harness, HANS, and all the rest?.. with internal strengthening roll cage?... in US parlance, that is a half-ton van - designed for a cushy ride for 6-8 people. and no, no HANS device, as it hadn't been invented yet. |
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Post by the light works on Mar 21, 2014 14:16:23 GMT
Well, the first two seasons only had three van crashes/jumps. In season one the van was forced off the road and ended up on its side. In season two they drove the van into the bay as a distraction and of course there was the jump(s) I mentioned above. The last of the van jumps clearly shows that the right front side of the van was crushed on landing, although naturally the van we see seconds later is undamaged. The first crash was according to BA afterwards hard enough to snap the rear axle of the van. What is interesting about both (if indeed not all) stunts done in the van is the seats. If you look closely it is clear that the van not only lacks seatbelts, but that the seats are capable of turning to face the rear of the van - that includes the drivers seat. This doesn't seem like the sort of design you'd want to perform a jump or have a crash in. In terms of armour plating, yes I did notice that. The 'worst' offender was an early season 2 episode where they armour a van using...the wall panels from an elevator. They have also (in the episodes I've seen) used corrugated iron sheets more than once. Most of the 'armour' used does seem to be steel sheets, roughly 1cm thick, which would *probably* be capable of stopping pistol rounds. Of course most of the time they are being shot at with rifles. the same rifles: mini-14s with chrome barrels. keep in mind the 70s bodywork roughly doubles the total thickness of the steel. |
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Post by OziRiS on Mar 22, 2014 3:30:22 GMT
the same rifles: mini-14s with chrome barrels. That's what the A-team used. That and M1911's. Usually they were being shot at with M16's, shotguns, hunting rifles or pistols/revolvers. |
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Post by the light works on Mar 22, 2014 7:46:17 GMT
the same rifles: mini-14s with chrome barrels. That's what the A-team used. That and M1911's. Usually they were being shot at with M16's, shotguns, hunting rifles or pistols/revolvers. not a whole lot of variety, usually - saved money on props. |
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 22, 2014 10:36:43 GMT
Ok, so now I am confuse.....
"You learn something new every day".
Can someone then give me the run down on what is a half ton, one ton, or what it refers to?...
The UK version of what I though was a One-Ton could take two standard pallets and had a payload of one ton.
(imperial... we dont do metric tons in transport, its confusing, and we want exacts.)
We call that a Transit.
Larger than that is a Luton, which is a high-roof large transit, maybe long wheelbase "Dualy" back end.
Up from that is a seven-and-a-half, which is a reference to maximum combined wagon and load weight, then you are into heavy goods, clas two and one, or C and C+E modern lingo.
So if a van that looks to have a side door for one pallet and back doors for the other, can take two half ton pallets which is a one ton payload....?....
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 22, 2014 10:39:25 GMT
I had it on good authority that HANS (the name) was invented by racers, as a combination of other things that Stunt drivers had been using for years?...
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Post by the light works on Mar 22, 2014 13:22:23 GMT
Ok, so now I am confuse..... "You learn something new every day". Can someone then give me the run down on what is a half ton, one ton, or what it refers to?... The UK version of what I though was a One-Ton could take two standard pallets and had a payload of one ton. (imperial... we dont do metric tons in transport, its confusing, and we want exacts.) We call that a Transit. Larger than that is a Luton, which is a high-roof large transit, maybe long wheelbase "Dualy" back end. Up from that is a seven-and-a-half, which is a reference to maximum combined wagon and load weight, then you are into heavy goods, clas two and one, or C and C+E modern lingo. So if a van that looks to have a side door for one pallet and back doors for the other, can take two half ton pallets which is a one ton payload....?.... in the US, they will take a chassis, and put 3 different grades of springs and axles on it; and it will be rated for different payload weights. (modern vans and pickups are further muddied by having different chasses and different spring and axle combinations.) originally, when the terminology became common, you could buy a pickup with a payload rating of 1000# (US), 1500# or 2000#. if you were hauling feathers, you would buy a half ton, and if you were hauling fertilizer, you would buy a one-ton. more than that, and you would be best off buying a truck.   note the characteristic differences in styling, wheels, and ride height. tangent: that is why I scoff at Toyota's claim to make a 1-ton truck - their one ton truck has a maximum GVWR that is less than the dry weight of a "big three" one-ton. |
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Post by Cybermortis on Mar 22, 2014 13:34:09 GMT
the same rifles: mini-14s with chrome barrels. That's what the A-team used. That and M1911's. Usually they were being shot at with M16's, shotguns, hunting rifles or pistols/revolvers. They used M-16's in the first season, then switched to the chrome-barrelled guns in season 2. The bad guys usually used either M16's or AR-15's (one episode identifies the weapons carried by the bad guys as AR-15's), along with various hunting rifles and I think at least once AKM's. |
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Post by the light works on Mar 22, 2014 13:58:28 GMT
That's what the A-team used. That and M1911's. Usually they were being shot at with M16's, shotguns, hunting rifles or pistols/revolvers. They used M-16's in the first season, then switched to the chrome-barrelled guns in season 2. The bad guys usually used either M16's or AR-15's (one episode identifies the weapons carried by the bad guys as AR-15's), along with various hunting rifles and I think at least once AKM's. I would guess the colt platform rifles were all AR-15s. they might have changed the costumes around to add variety - but they seemed to be pretty consistently using the same basic props - as I said before, I would guess it was a budgetary thing. |
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Post by Cybermortis on Mar 22, 2014 15:11:36 GMT
The A-Team, at least for the first two seasons, seems to have either been low budget or saved the budget for the various bits of equipment they needed for the fight scenes.
I'd guess a mixture of the two. They rather clearly used existing sets at the studio (if redressed) and/or filmed on location rather than build their own. (The only 'set' they had to build was the inside of the van, and I'm not sure if they actually used the real van's interior or built a duplicate). In this light I'd suspect that the weapons they used were whatever the studio happened to have in storage, or whatever they could get for cheap.
For the second season they most likely got more money, and decided to invest in 'hero' weapons to make the team stand out. (Not just the rifles, Face gets a chrome-plated revolver in the second season). This would have freed up the original rifles for use by the bad guys*. This would have allowed them to have more armed men on screen for the fights - which off the top of my head does match with the increasing scale of many of the gun fights towards the end of season two. (It would also explain why season two ended with a 'clip show', presumably they spent so much on the fights during the rest of the season they had next to nothing left at the end.)
(*Of course even in the early 1980's the most blood thirsty mob boss would have thought twice before driving around town in a car filled with men armed with assault-rifles. That would tend to draw the wrong kind of attention...)
Anyway, back to the myths.
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Post by the light works on Mar 22, 2014 15:20:44 GMT
considering their bad habit of waiving their fee; low budget certainly fits the storyline.
/tangent.
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Post by silverdragon on Mar 23, 2014 12:01:39 GMT
 Note the similarities between the two..... HUGE similarities.... But that is what we call a "transit", all vans of that size in UK are sort of spoken about as being "I need a transit". They can carry one ton, easily..... Upgrades, dual wheel back axles, may take more weight. When we say Dual wheel, we mean This.....  NOT this.....  Which is just wrong on so many levels?.... Ok, as an engineering stunt, yes, neat. However... So, now we have reference.... By the way, seven-and-a-half....  That will carry 2.5 ton imperial. It therefore weighs in at 5 tons unladen?... It is now a category C1 on modern licences. "Light Goods", maybe a replacement for the old class 3 It used to be you could drive that on a normal car licence............. Rather bigger than a car?... but you could just jump in and drive with no further instructions?... Now you know why we had that rule changed. For referance, the wheels on that are about the same size as a Transit Van.... Compared to the huge above-your-door height of larger class vehicles, that is how you tell at a glance what it is. Seven-and-a-half have smaller wheels,.... |
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Post by the light works on Mar 23, 2014 14:19:49 GMT
Note the similarities between the two..... HUGE similarities.... But that is what we call a "transit", all vans of that size in UK are sort of spoken about as being "I need a transit". They can carry one ton, easily..... Upgrades, dual wheel back axles, may take more weight. When we say Dual wheel, we mean This..... NOT this..... Which is just wrong on so many levels?.... Ok, as an engineering stunt, yes, neat. However... So, now we have reference.... By the way, seven-and-a-half.... That will carry 2.5 ton imperial. It therefore weighs in at 5 tons unladen?... It is now a category C1 on modern licences. "Light Goods", maybe a replacement for the old class 3 It used to be you could drive that on a normal car licence............. Rather bigger than a car?... but you could just jump in and drive with no further instructions?... Now you know why we had that rule changed. For referance, the wheels on that are about the same size as a Transit Van.... Compared to the huge above-your-door height of larger class vehicles, that is how you tell at a glance what it is. Seven-and-a-half have smaller wheels,.... yes. huge similarities - like the same frame and body. but as I said, one is designed to carry 6-8 passengers and ride like a car, while the other is designed to carry heavy things, and, when unladen, rides like a lorry. more specifically, the lorry Clarkson was driving in the Bridge on the River Kwai journey. it is rather the same principle as having one model of Ford Focus that has a small economical engine and mama uses it to go to the shops, while another has a turbocharged performance engine and the yobbos use them to annoy their elders. no need to make a different assembly line for the chasses - just put in a different engine and mount different springs and axles. the also take the same basic design and truncate the body to allow them to stick whatever cargo module on the back they want - and then they can stick it to whatever length of frame they want, and have a truck (lorry) to suit whatever their purpose. Attachment Deletedand to us, the little red thing is a Transit - or as the more vocal among us call it, a "transexual" - I think they would rather we had kept the even-bigger-than-a-suburban to use as a personnel transport. Attachment Deleted |
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Post by the light works on Mar 23, 2014 14:31:03 GMT
here, BTW, is the configuration you usually see a half-ton van in.  basically an estate wagon with headroom. |
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Post by the light works on Apr 20, 2014 14:47:05 GMT
I just put this in kidnapping tropes - but I think I have also seen it done in the A-team: both with a voluntary and an involuntary passenger.
the passenger is standing on a street corner, the van pulls up, the side door flies open, and the person is grabbed and pulled into the van, whereupon the door slams closed and the van charges off, before anyone around can react.
on this thread, the question would be can this be done EITHER as a kidnap method, OR as an extraction method?
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Post by Lex Of Sydney Australia on Jun 10, 2014 13:04:51 GMT
This just came up in my Facebook feed from Jamie & Adams page.  They asked people to guess what they might be testing - no brainer really.   |
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Post by the light works on Jun 10, 2014 14:49:41 GMT
gonna have to pay close attention and re-read this thread...
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Post by Cybermortis on Jun 10, 2014 19:00:13 GMT
Well Adam tweeted a picture a week or so back where he appeared to be dressed as Hannibal. So not that much of a surprise.
Makes you wonder what Grant and Tory got to play - my money is on Tory making the better 'Howling Mad' Murdock, on account of being the only member of the cast insane enough to taser themselves so they could remember what it felt like.
Kari would, of course, have to play Amy Alan. She was the female member of the team for the first season and a half, before the actress was fired for disgracefully asking to be allowed to take part in the action scenes and get to fire a gun on occasion.
*Edit*
Of course knowing that they are or have done an A-Team special means very little, since there is no way to tell exactly what myths or A-Team tropes they decided to test. I'm guessing at least one segment will be related to the van, and from Adam's picture it does look as if they also picked a gun-related myth - There were two targets behind him that showed signs of bullet impacts, although those might have been from doing something else if they reused the targets from something else they've done.
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Post by OziRiS on Jun 10, 2014 21:58:12 GMT
DAMN IT!!! I came to this thread now because I just thought of a myth they could test that hasn't been posted yet and now I find out that they're already filming/done filming an A-Team special?!
Oh well... Hope it turns out to be good...
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Post by Lex Of Sydney Australia on Jun 10, 2014 22:26:00 GMT
DAMN IT!!! I came to this thread now because I just thought of a myth they could test that hasn't been posted yet and now I find out that they're already filming/done filming an A-Team special?! Oh well... Hope it turns out to be good... Submit the myth, who knows the may just do a sequel. |
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