STORM Chaser - This following car has a lot of uniqueness ranging from its name, shapes to its unusual weight. Inevitably it is the impact of its duties that are not usually done. What's the job? Don't be surprised if this car is used to chase a tornado.
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| This is the Dominator 3 known as the 3rd Storm Research Vehicles (SRV) ever built by Dominator Team headed of Reed Timmer, based on the 2013 Ford F-350 Super Duty. (Picture from: TheDrive) |
At first glance, this unique car looks like a giant snail crawling on the asphalt of American streets. It was built by a scientist who also works as a storm chaser named Ridd Timmer. To do his challenging storm chaser activities, of course he and his team needs a vehicle that is strong against the wind generated by the tornado. Therefore Timmer also modified the 2013 Ford F-350 Super Duty car into a vehicle that could survive against the tornado.
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| Ridd Timmer, PhD. Head of the Dominator team posed along with the Storm Research Vehicle (SRV) Dominator 3. (Picture from: IndoZone) |
The car was then named Dominator 3, as You can see the 11,000 lbs (almost 5 tonnes) weighted vehicle comes with an unusual shape like a metal giant snail. The purpose of making Dominator 3 is a special purposed research vehicle that can survive the hard gusts of a tornado, so that the scientists inside are able to study the characteristics of tornadoes up close.
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| Accuweather Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer and team along with its Storm Resarch Vehicle (SRV) Dominator 3 are in the area chasing tornadoes. (Picture from: KNOPNews) |
In a video uploaded by Jay Leno from CNBC, you can see while the Storm Research Vehicle (SRV) Dominator 3 being tested for resistance to the wind generated by jet planes. As seen in the video, the car is able to survive the very strong gusts of winds.
Thank you @OutbrkGame for the awesome Dominator 3 visualization from their storm chasing video game! We are using this for a figure in the journal article on the May 28, 2019 rocket launch, sensor data collected on journey from EF4 tornado to 39,000' to church lawn 32 miles away pic.twitter.com/bTC8Lwd3e2
— Reed Timmer, PhD (@ReedTimmerAccu) January 6, 2020
As quoted from Motor1, in actual conditions it turned out that Dominator 3 was able to survive the tornado's gusts. This can be seen in an 8-minute short video titled "The Best Tornado Interception in History," which documents how the Dominator Team managed to intercept, then get into a tornado in Spalding, Nebraska, and could be withstand with the help of Dominator 3.
Due to protected by a military grade 16-gauge steel lining and is fully equipped polycarbonate shatter-proof windows, and aftermarket air suspension that lowers the body very close to the ground, the Dominator 3 could save everyone inside and keeps them safe during the adrenaline-filled seconds when challenging a storm.
It is known that this Dominator 3 comes with a 6.7-liter PowerStroke V8 diesel engine specification with 400 horsepower. It seems that Timmer is still using the default engine from the car. Apart from that, it turned out that Timmer had spent US$750,000 or approx of Rp. 11 billions to make this giant metal snail get into and studied a tornado and hurricanes. Cool isn't! *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | REED TIMMER | THEDRIVE | ID.MOTOR1 | KNOP2NEWS | WIKIPEDIA | SCOUTLIFE ]
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