There’s nothing in Top Gun to prepare pilots for this: Back on April 11, an F-111 was doing a trial bombing raid exercise at Evan’s Head in northern NSW when a pelican casually crashed into the plane’s nose and was promptly sucked into one of the jet’s engines.
The jet was flying at 900 metres and at more than 550 kph when they collided, and the damage included a hole in one wing. After the collision, the pilots (Maverick and Iceman?) flew the gimped plane for 30 minutes back to the Amberley Air Force base.
Repairs to the plane are expected to cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but should be completed in about a month’s time. The Pelican, who we’ve decided to call Marv, is in a stable condition dead. It was sucked through an F-111′s jet engine, after all.
News.com.au has a gallery of the damage, if you’re into that kind of carnage. Which you are, aren’t you?
For those who need to lug around a desktop computer, Pelican makes “portable” cases for industrial use. Their newest offering supports 24-inch iMacs. It’s water and air tight and promises to be indestructible. So while others might see the iMCruzer as the perfect trade show accessory, we see it as a perfect companion in wilderness excursions or even a simple trip to Starbucks. Just add a few car batteries, and with the US$495 iMCruzer case your two-foot iMac is basically a laptop. Live it up, yuppies. [product via crunchgear]
Keeping our PS3 controller charged is such a pain that we always have to plug it in whenever we’re watching Blu-ray movies. Pelican’s Charge and Store eliminates lazy charging syndrome by providing both a charger and a stand, so you can keep your gaming area organized at the same time. The retail price is $29, which isn’t too bad since it juices two controllers at the same time—and seeing how short the included PS3 charge cable is, it’ll save you a number of treks across the living room as well. [Pelican via IGN] More »
If you regularly kick down doors and beat people over the head with hard things, you’re either part of the LAPD or an action movie star. Either way, you should really be carrying this Pelican 7060 LED flashlight, the official flashlight of the Los Angeles Police Department. If you thought your Mag Light was both tough and bright, then you owe it to yourself (and your victims) to grab one of these. It even has a momentary pulse mode to disorient children. [Pelican] More »
Despite the PS3 not having any heating problems (as far as we know), Pelican‘s getting ready to release a cooler attachment for the PS3. The unit will slip on next to the disc drive, run on its own AC power and supposedly lower temperatures by up to 15 degrees.
Luckily, the cooler’s design is just like the PS3′s, so you’re not going to get a gigantic inconsistency. Hopefully this won’t have all the problems Nyko’s Xbox 360 cooler did, since this uses a separate AC adapter instead of a pass-through. Speaking of Nyko, their previously announced Intercooler still hasn’t shipped yet. – Jason Chen
