New levels of stupidity.

Although I'm not always a fan of the somewhat officious nature of the ARC/ALRC 'roolbook', at least they would have ensured such a clownfest would never happen.

This clip breaks just about every recovery rool IMO - full marks to the Bishi tho!

There's a second clip where he drives it home.

That's the kind of fun you want someone else to have!

I've just noticed that "Portal Pete" has put in an appearance now in his used-to-be-mitsubishi, mog axles four-wheel steering, and hydraulic suspension with which he can raise and lower each wheel individually. Interesting truck but I'll bet it's hell to drive with all those controls!

On or around Thu, 22 May 2008 15:59:21 +0100, "Lee_D" enlightened us thusly:

why TF didn't they pull it before it got into the deep bit? They had a rope on it, all they had to do was hook a vehicle on it - at the very least, they'd have held it on the bank until they could get another vehicle on it, but no, they stand around like farts for about 2-3 minutes.

Actually, the better bet would have been to release one end of the long rope instead of trying to reverse across the pond... but if they'd hooked a motor on straight away while it was half-way up the bank they'd have avoided all the subsequent hassle.

On or around Thu, 22 May 2008 16:37:32 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

It falls over in an elegant way.

Mind, I suspect that it only fell over 'cos he didn't react fast enough to the terrain.

On or around Thu, 22 May 2008 16:37:32 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

it's well impressive. Demonstrates the problem in getting super-clearance, though, which is you lose stability - on a side slope it's still unstable even if the wheel is in contact, 'cos the wheel ends up underneath the vehicle and much closer to the centre-line and hence the centre of gravity. This means that a relatively small change in conditions will tip it over, especially as the COG is that much higher as well.

You could do it even more effectively with an independent setup and a telescopic driveshaft to the wheel, so that the wheel, observed from the reference frame of the chassis, moves vertically downwards. That way the downhill wheel stays under the edge of the body. Doesn't address the height of the COG above the wheels, but does at least keep the wheel in line with the edge of the body.

Because it wouldn't have been worth youtubing?

Hmmm...one must ask - why tow something backwards across tha much water????

I think the answer must be "to see what happens".

I mean, they've got to do something to fill the afternoon in...

Would be a PITA to get power to the wheel though, telescoping splined shafts perhaps or even hydraulic drive!

On or around Mon, 26 May 2008 21:50:22 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

Hydraulic drive would be best, that or an electric transmission - electric motors on the wheels and a big alternator in place of the gearbox, and a fancy thyristor setup.

Probably end up heavier than a conventional system - and there's a question of torque, induction motors would be the way to go for simplicity and lack of wear parts, but they've got rubbish torque at low speeds.

A lot of propshafts are telescopic. Just depends on how telescopic you need to make 'em....

DC traction motor.

Steve

Be interesting if they weren't!

I think Austin is talking about axle shafts :-)

As an aside, there was a model at one of the shows a few years ago, prolly the one where the Robot Wars mob turned up (in itself worth a visit), of an off-road, well, more 'all terrain' buggy which had independent motors on each of the 6 wheels - traction controlled by a small 'puter. Each wheel/motor was on a small telescopic ram. Although only a foot or so in size, they had it driving over concrete building blocks and going through a tray of water as deep as the model was high.

Here's another approach;

Suitably impressed!

On or around Wed, 28 May 2008 11:51:06 +0100, steve Taylor enlightened us thusly:

yeah, but then you need even more fancy control gear.

I reckon hydraulic drive is the way to go, provided you can make it go fast enough.

On or around Wed, 28 May 2008 14:14:42 +0100, .mother enlightened us thusly:

same thing, in essence, although it'd need CVs to cope with the angles. Main thing is that it'd need to telescope to about double it's shortest length.

The more I think about it, the more I like hydraulic drive - I daresay you can use that for braking as well, and doubtless with suitable control gear make it have 4-way traction control as well.