i'm doomed, you're safe

Costume appreciation series: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) dir Stephan Elliott

IS TOO AMAZING

FOR WORDS

Other FLIPPIN AMAZING facts not included above:

- It wasnt just one pounds/liters mixup, it was TWO, at DIFFERENT STATIONS, because most planes still used pounds EXCEPT this new type of plane

- There were also several mechanical goofups, including one serious goofup where one guy UNDID ANOTHER GUY’S REPAIR thanks to misreading the report, and all together it just created this Rube Goldberg series of mishaps leading to disaster

- An additional mishap is that THE FRONT WHEEL WOULD NOT EXTEND when they tried to land, but this actually helped because they needed the extra friction from the nose hitting the ground???

- The plane was dead silent due to BOTH engines being out of fuel, so those people at the family day race? NO warning that a plane was coming. Pilot says he could literally see the expressions of terror on two boys in bicycles as they buzzed over them.

- Almost all the instruments were powered by the engines and there was NO PROCEDURE IN THE CHECKLIST FOR FLYING WITHOUT ANY ENGINES, so these two pilots had to do everything based on one guy’s experience as a glider (even though he had never done the slip manuever himself) and a whole bunch of on-the-spot math about windspeeds

- The drag race being there ACTUALLY HELPED because, like the nose scraping the ground, the guardrail they had up for the race helped stop the plane!!! It’s like God looked at all those earlier mishaps and was like “Nah those devils have definitely overstepped and Ive got a few kids on board praying their hearts out, time for a few reversals to make this a good old-fashioned miracle.”

- When the plane landed, the only injuries were minor ones sustained as passengers got off the plane (because the tail was up and the emergency slides didnt quite reach the ground)

- There was a minor fire in the nose cone but the racetrack people had fire extinguishers and put it out