10 tricks from the Fast and the Furious movies that would not work in reality

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

You just have to believe in such things.

1. Falling from the window of the FBI headquarters

In Fast and Furious 7, Deckard Shaw, a vengeful hitman, is determined to get even with Dominic and his "family" for sending his brother Owen to intensive care. To do this, he breaks into the FBI headquarters and extracts from the computer of special agent Luke Hobbs data on the team of racers. For this, in fact, Hobbs catches him. After a short fight, Deckard detonates a bomb in the room.

Hobbs, saving his partner Elena from the explosion, grabs her in an armful and jumps out of the window.

For a second: it was at least the fifth floor. But, fortunately, a car was parked below, softening the blow. So Hobbs and Elena survived.

What really is. In the film, Hobbs broke his leg in two places and shattered his elbow, and Elena remained completely unharmed. In reality, the big man would die or remain paralyzed for life, because he managed to land exactly on his back. A spinal fracture - possibly more than one - is guaranteed.

In Hollywood, they like to make airbags out of cars, on which you can land from any height. But in fact, there is not much difference where to fall - on the car or on the asphalt. Because real cars are not soft, but hard. At least compared to the human body.

2. Escape from a Russian submarine

In Fast and Furious 8, brave street racers travel to Russia, to the secret Vladovo base, to prevent the evil hacker Cypher from seizing a nuclear submarine and stealing nuclear weapons placed on it.

The plan fails, and Cypher nevertheless takes the submarine under remote control, starting to chase the riders. Only coordinated actions of the team help to stop the villainess and prevent the Third World War.

What really is. A spectacular pursuit involving a nuclear submarine would not have happened. The maximum speed of the Russian Project 941 Akula submarine is 12 knots (22 km / h) on the surface and 25 knots (46 km / h) under water.

It is easy to see that this is not enough to catch up with cars or run away from them.

In addition, remote control of the submarine, in principle, is not provided. Otherwise, why would it need to accommodate 160 crew members?

3. Holding the helicopter by hand

Hobbs and Shaw, a spin-off of the series, features a chase scene involving a helicopter and several cars. The helicopter of the villain, a super-soldier named Briggs, was grabbed by the heroes on a hook with a strong chain.

When Hobbs realized that the winch was damaged, he, in order to prevent the scoundrel from flying away, grabbed a chain and held the helicopter on a leash with one hand. Then he managed to reattach the winch. This is muscle!

What really is. Briggs pursued Hobbs and Shaw in a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk military helicopter. Its carrying capacity is 4,100 kilograms.

This means that Hobbs is able to hold 4 tons with one hand.

The world record for lifting weights with one arm in the real world was set by strongman Hermann Görner. On October 8, 1920, in Leipzig, he lifted 330 kg - and immediately released it. So far, no one has succeeded in surpassing him.

So it would not have been possible for Hobbs to keep the lasso Black Hawk. A limb would have been torn off Luke with a chain, since a human body is unlikely to withstand a tensile force of 4 tons.

And finally, even if Hobbs is physically invulnerable and able to survive even a direct collision of planets, Black Hawk would have lifted him along with the car and dragged him along. Because even a big man on weight cannot exceed the carrying capacity of an entire helicopter.

4. Race backwards

Fast and Furious 8 kicks off with a spectacular race initiated by Dominic Toretto. Wanting to save his friend (or brother?) From debt, Dominic undertakes to overtake a cool car of a local crime boss in an old and broken-down car. Naturally, he succeeds.

It doesn't matter what the car has under the hood. The main thing is who is driving.

Dominic Toretto

At the final stage of the race, Dominik's car has an engine flashing. The fire interferes with the view of the rider, but he undoubtedly turns the car around and drives to the finish line in reverse.

What really is. Just a note: cars in reverse drive slower than in main. Of course, it depends on the make of the car: one car enthusiast of the experiment, for the sake of accelerating his sedan to 70 km / h.

Nevertheless, it is highly doubtful that Dominic will be able to overtake the full-speed street racer with his trunk forward.

5. Shooting from the minigun

When, in the seventh part of the franchise, the heroes manage to shoot down a drone belonging to terrorists, Hobbs finds a use for it. He removes a machine-gun turret from the wreckage of the drone and fires from it a helicopter of villains who are already preparing to attack his friend, Dominic Toretto.

What really is. Shooting from the minigun is impossible: it will knock anyone down with the recoil. Even a strong man like Dwayne Johnson.

For example, during the filming of the famous "Predator" the film crew used a real M134 machine gun. But the actor who fired from him had to be fixed on supports invisible in the frame, and the minigun was loaded with blanks with reduced recoil. Without these precautions, the first volley would have dropped the shooter to the ground.

And yes, even if Hobbs was so strong that he could hold a 39-kilogram cannon that spits 6,000 times a minute in his hands, he still could not have fired a single shot from it.

Aircraft guns designed for drones do not need to be equipped with triggers or braces, so that a person has nowhere to press to make a machine gun fire. There are special lightweight miniguns for hand carry, but Hobbs is clearly not.

6. Landing machines by parachute

Wherever the brave racers go, they will always bring their favorite cool cars with them. And if street racers are going to ride on an isolated mountain road in Azerbaijan, where cars cannot be delivered, they can be dropped there by parachute. The car on the move will land on the road and go about its business, getting rid of the parachute.

What really is. Landing equipment dropped by parachute without damage is still a task. Even airborne combat vehicles sometimes manage to get damaged and get out of order, performing such a trick.

And the BMD will obviously be stronger than the glamorous cars of the Fast and the Furious heroes.

Surprisingly, this scene was created without the use of computer graphics: the film crew actually dropped cars (without drivers) with parachutes from the C-130 aircraft. And three stunt operators flew alongside and recorded what was happening on cameras.

But the landing was filmed separately using a conventional crane. The reason is that the impact that the car will receive upon landing will destroy its chassis.

In order to lower cars from an airplane to the ground, 1. V. I. Shaikin. "The history of the creation and development of the Airborne Forces."

2.. shock-absorbing pillows and even soft-landing solid-fuel engines. But Dominic Toretto's street racers did not have anything like that: their fall was uncontrollable, landing mitigation was not provided.

This means that they would have found themselves in the forest surrounding the road, receiving numerous injuries, and their cars would at least have burst tires.

7. Jumping on a sports car between skyscrapers

Once, street racers led by Dominic Toretto needed to steal a secret chip from an Arab sheikh in Abu Dhabi. They broke into his skyscraper at a party there and stole a fancy Lykan HyperSport supercar. This is because the sheikh stuffed the chip right into the car. It was just that the safe was not at hand.

When Brian O'Connor and Dominic were trapped, surrounded by sheikh's guards, they drove off in a supercar through the window.

Dominic, cars don't fly. Cars don't fly!

Brian O `Connor

We flew through a nearby skyscraper and barely managed to jump out of the supercar in the next building. And the luxury car fell and crashed. Which is very sad.

What really is. After the release of Fast and Furious 7, physics professor Lee Loveridge of Pierce College decided to test whether the flight in the Lykan HyperSport between the three Etihad towers was real. After doing some calculations, he confirmed that this is a completely feasible trick. Perhaps even the most feasible of all the Fast and Furious films. The problem is different.

It's not so difficult to fly out of the window of one skyscraper and hit the window of another a couple of floors below - unless, of course, you are lucky and you do not fall into the bulkhead between the floors. It is difficult to remain unscathed when the car lands.

The impact that the driver and passenger will experience when the Lykan HyperSport's wheels hit the floor after a flight between buildings will be extremely hard, Loveridge says.

The chassis of the supercar is guaranteed to fail - the car will no longer need the brakes. And Brian and Dominic will be seriously injured and are unlikely to be able to leave the scene of the crime other than in an ambulance. Or in a hearse.

8. Tank overturning by car

In "Fast and Furious 6" there is an extremely spectacular and coolly filmed scene: an uncontrollable tank chasing street racers. Team member Roman Pierce hooks up his vehicle with a cable to the combat vehicle, using it as an anchor. The vehicle falls into the abyss from the bridge, and the tank flips over, catapulting Letty stuck on the armor.

But Dominic jumps off the hood of his car on the move, using its momentum to give himself acceleration, catches the girl in flight and crashes his back into another car thrown on the bridge. Having softened the fall with his mighty body, Dom saves the life of his beloved woman.

What really is. Letty's flight and Dominic's "leap of faith" are impossible for several reasons, which are quite obvious for people who have mastered the school physics course.

First, the vehicle is not capable of overturning a combat vehicle. The British Chieftain tank, a modified version of which was filmed in the film, weighs 55 tons. An average passenger car is about 1.5 tons. The difference in mass is visible to the naked eye.

Turning a tank over with a car is like trying to move a weight by tying a matchbox to it with a fishing line and throwing it out of the window. Rather, an automobile cable caught in the armor of a combat vehicle would have torn.

By the way, the maximum speed of Chieftain on the highway is 48 km / h, which is also clearly not enough to chase street race cars.

Secondly, Dominic, who set off in flight with acceleration under a hundred kilometers per hour, would have killed Letty with his body, crashing into her in the air, and he himself would have earned numerous fractures incompatible with life.

And finally, third: cars do not cushion the impact very well because they are slightly harder than rescue tarpaulins. So Dom would have broken his spine if he collided with the windshield of a wheelbarrow on the bridge.

9. Theft of the safe

At the end of Fast and Furious 5, Dominic Toretto's team steals a safe with money from the mafia boss Reis. The heroes take the multi-ton colossus along the sunny streets of the city of Rio from under the noses of the head of the gang and the purchased police officers, attaching it with cables to a pair of their 2010 Dodge Charger SRT-8s.

What really is. Physicist Randall Kelly of Harvard presented equations describing the transport of a 10-ton safe (voiced by racing team member Tej Parker in the film) in a way that Dominic and Brian used.

The physicist estimated the power of the Dodge Charger engine (425 horsepower), the weight of the safe and the money in it (4,900 kilograms of cash). I estimated the speed of movement (50 miles, or 80 km / h, it is impossible to say more precisely) and calculated the number of cars required for the operation.

In general, the theft of the safe is more than possible. Only need 467 Dodge Charger cars.

Keep in mind that Dr. Kelly's calculations are only valid for American tons (1 American ton equals 907, 18474 kilograms). And if the character of Ludacris, referring to the figure of 10 tons, meant metric units, the 467 Dodge Charger will not be enough.

10. Airplane chase

"Fast and Furious 6" ends with the street racers chasing the AN-124 military aircraft, on which the main villain of the film, Owen Shaw, is trying to escape. The heroes manage to overload the plane with their cars (Shaw forgot to close the AN-124 ramp in time, with whom it does not happen), not allowing him to break away from the runway.

AN-124 crashed, the henchmen of the criminal died. Owen Shaw was sent by Special Agent Hobbs to places not so remote, and Toretto and his team received a long-awaited pardon and pardon for their previous antics.

What really is. Jesse Fox of Vulture and Robert Travis, president of the Independent Pilots Association, calculated the length of the runway from the duration of the aircraft scenes and the takeoff speed of the AN-124. Considering that the chase lasted 13 minutes 3 seconds, the plane managed to cover 28.83 miles (46.40 km) during this time.

The longest runway in the world is at Edwards AFB, USA. It is located on the surface of the dried up Rogers Lake and is 11, 9 km long. The longest asphalt runway is Kamdo Bamda Airport - 5.5 km. Where the Fast and the Furious heroes could arrange an airplane race is a mystery.