Gordon was flying his single-engine Turbo-Arrow out of St. Augustine's airport (now called Northeast Florida Regional Airport) when one side of his landing gear failed to open. Anxious to attempt anything that would prevent having to do a "belly landing" without landing gear, Gordon and fellow air show veteran pilot Moser had a wild idea about how to solve the problem. Moser, who was on the ground, thought he'd get a flatbed truck and drive it down the runway while Gordon landed on it. It was similar to something Jim and his father Ernie would do, landing J-3 Cubs on small platforms built on top of moving pickup trucks.
However, the truck couldn't build up enough speed for Gordon to land on it. Then, they came up with another idea, in some ways crazier than the first.
While Gordon continued to circle the airport, Moser got into the fastest car he could find, his own Audi. Moser drove down the runway at more than 90 mph while mechanic Joe Lippo stretched out of the car's sunroof. Fellow mechanic Rhett Radford was also in the car holding on to Lippo. The 6-foot, 4-inch Lippo pulled the landing gear free, and Gordon was able to land safely. "It was pretty bumpy," Gordon told the Associated Press. "I was a little bit worried." Some accused Gordon and Moser of setting up the whole thing as a publicity stunt for Aero Sport Inc., but they insisted the problem was legitimate. "It wasn't an air show," Gordon said. "It was the real thing. But we used the skill and knowledge from air shows to do what we had to do."
In a feat that resembled some of their practiced air show stunts, Scott Gordon and Jim Moser found their biggest audience by creatively solving a potentially tragic problem. \n It was in 1985 that Gor…
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