The United States Army's latest development, the quadrupedal Sidewinder armoured transport, is undergoing field tests in the wilderness. Equipped with two grasping claws and weighing over 500 tonnes, the vehicle was built to counter African brushfire wars. Alas, the enormous walker crosses an unmarked military landfill that had gained a thin topsoil crust and plunged into the Pit Of Peril. The waste in the pit has caught fire and the Sidewinder is trapped on its side.
Fortunately, the remoteness of the testing facility is no impediment to the Thunderbird aircraft of International Rescue, who turn up and save the day with a combination of their Drill Tank The Mole and a pair of heavy-lifting trucks.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The Sidewinder is essentially a mobile army base, described as perfect for dealing with brush wars. It has such strong pincer-tipped arms that it can clear its own path through a dense jungle by ripping trees up by the roots. However, those spindly legs that allow it to cross terrain that is impassable for wheeled vehicles mean it cannot self-right if something manages to tip it on its roof. It is also so large and heavy that specialist heavy-lifting equipment is needed to pull it out of any pit or crevasse it falls into.
- Bandage Mummy: Both soldiers who are lowered unprotected into the pit suffer severe burns over their entire bodies, necessitating this treatment — complete with Bandaged Face — until they can be airlifted to hospital.
- Base on Legs: The Sidewinder is a mobile military base, meant to quickly move to the site of the latest brush war. Fortunately, it is only on a test run with three staff members aboard when the disaster occurs.
- Convection, Schmonvection:
- The brave soldier is lowered into the blazing pit and suffers no ill effects until he's close to the bottom.
- An additional soldier is lowered in holding onto a metal pipe with his bare hands. Must have been very painful.
- Drill Tank: The Mole.
- Militaries Are Useless: The military itself are the ones that get in trouble this episode and their own attempts to save the Sidewinder fail miserably. That last part is justified since they are in a remote area with no opportunity to bring in better equipment on a short notice, so they have to make do with what they got in the field.
- No Antagonist: This episode is simply about trying to rescue three men from a pit, they did not fall there as a result of any villainous scheme and no villains interfere with the rescue attempts.
- Pit Trap: Albeit an unintentional one since the thin topsoil covering the pit was formed naturally.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Military training or no, a man going down a Pit Trap full of burning military rubbish is not going to fare well.
- Trashcan Bonfire: A truly enormous example.
- Walking Tank: The Sidewinder.
