Tornado Chasing

This is insane but very very cool -- from AutoWeek:

Casey vs. the Tornado
Storm chaser builds an armored Ford F-450 to drive into tornados
Earlier this year near Paducah, Texas, cinematographer Sean Casey got the scary part of his wish. "The holy grail of all footage is to get a tornado coming right at you�filming with a wide-angle lens, and having the tornado hit you, impact the camera�and that shot really hasn�t been gotten yet," says the seven-year storm-chasing veteran. "If we can get that on IMAX, it would be a really nice, nice shot."

Because of heavy rain, his bulky IMAX camera didn�t get the shot. Casey was hit by a tornado twice that day, events he recalls with a calm, articulate tone belying that average folks think the feat is totally, completely, insanely nuts.

"The first was like being sandblasted by 70- to 80-mph winds. The last tornado was rain-wrapped. You couldn�t see the tornado. We just drove right into it," recalls Casey. "The wind reading was 55 meters per second, so maybe 110 mph."

Until three years ago Casey would never have tried driving into a tornado. "One year we had a pickup and we had the camera on a helicopter mount in the back. We were trying to get to the mode where you can film at any time. It was always a hard deal to jump out of a car, set up your sticks [tripod], set up the camera and then get your shot. But we were still exposed in the back of the pickup. Going down the highway at 80 mph, if something happens you�re dead."

"We had a close call in 2001 in a minivan where we actually locked ourselves out of the minivan," he says. "We were really close to these tornados. It was just after that we thought, 'Let�s build a vehicle that can take some abuse.' A vehicle where if you get hit by a tornado, even a violent one, you�re probably going to be okay."

So he built the TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle), a long-wheelbase 1997 Ford F-450 diesel dually pickup. No one at Ford would recognize it, though. The body has been replaced by inexpertly welded thick steel plates, and incorporates a roof turret housing the large IMAX film camera. Occupants peer out through prison-window Lexan portals.

"It�s so ugly! It�s just a big mobile tripod for the camera," Casey says.

Here are two photos of Casey's rig:

That must be a rush.