Aeroplanes - even astonishingly large ones such as the Ilyushin IL-76 cargo-hauler in this video - are beautifully graceful in the air, but once on the ground they're about as mobile as an elephant seal on a Patagonian pebble beach.
Unless you're willing to turn vast quantities of Jet A-1 kerosene into evil-smelling fumes they have to be towed everywhere - and that has given rise to some awe-inspiring stunts in the past.
At a recent Nissan media conference that was (coincidentally, we are assured) held at Sharjah international airport in the United Arab Emirates, a bog stock Nissan Patrol SUV (except for a specially-fabricated hitch to take an airport towbar) was hooked up to an Ilyushin IL76 cargo plane.
FREEZE FRAME.
Let's do the maths before they burn out the torque converter on the Patrol. The Nissan has a 5.6-litre petrol V8 rated at 298kW and 560Nm, driving all four wheels through a seven-speed lock-up auto transmission and a 4x4 system that allows on-the-fly changes between road, sand, snow and rock-driving modes.
It weighs 2695kg ready to go.
According to the Ilyushin Design Bureau, the IL-76 is 46.59 metres long, has a wingspan of 50.5 metres and four turbofan engines generating 117 700 Newtons on thrust - each!. It can carry a payload of 50 tons over a distance of 3650km.
As measured by the Guinness Book of World Records judges, the example supposedly stuck on the runway at Sharjah weighed in at 155 038kg - that's 155 metric tons or 170.9 US tons, hence the banner on the side of the fuselage.
NOW WATCH THE VIDEO TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED