New York community wowed by plane landing atop moving Mack Granite

The incredible stunt was arranged by a local family-owned business

On August 30, audiences at the third annual Wings Over Batavia Air Show in Batavia, New York watched a plane land on top of a moving garbage truck. The truck in question was a 2024 Mack® Granite® from Scofield Transfer & Recycling, Inc. The business is owned by Bruce and Tyler Scofield, a father-son team who also helped set up and arrange this aerial stunt.

Bruce Scofield said he saw the event as a great opportunity to promote his business in the community, as well as give his hometown crowd a spectacle to cheer for. It would be difficult to pull off and require immense precision, but Bruce knew his Mack trucks and felt confident that his Granite would be up to the challenge.

Dependable driving

Bruce founded Scofield Transfer & Recycling, Inc. in Stafford, New York in 2001—shortly before the 9/11 attacks—after leaving the oil business. Though he started with just “a roll-off truck, a mini, a single axle, and then four roll-off containers,” the business grew until he was able to open his own transfer station and scrapyard in 2011, and it continues to thrive today.

During that decade of growth, Bruce had an experience that made him fall in love with the Mack brand. He was driving a 1997 Mack CH612 day cab, returning from a delivery, when he blew a hose and lost coolant. He was still 18 miles from his shop. He decided to drive the truck as far as he could; after all, he was a small business owner, money was tight, and towing bills were expensive, so every mile he drove himself meant money saved.

“I kept driving,” Bruce said. “About a half mile away from the shop, I was losing oil pressure, and the engine was making all sorts of funky noises. But the truck didn't quit driving, so I made it to the shop. I turned it off, went home for dinner, and that was the end of my day.”

The next day, he decided to start the truck back up to see if he could determine what was wrong with it. To his surprise, the vehicle started up without a problem. He fixed the broken hose, refilled the coolant, and then gave it a test drive. It ran without issue.

“Well, Monday morning came in [the next day], and I had one employee at that time, so I put the truck out there, and it ran all day,” Bruce said. “I didn't even change the oil. I ran it two more days. At that point, I said, ‘I better change the oil! I think this thing’s gonna stay together.’ We never had to do anything to that Mack engine after that. That's when I became a Mack believer.”

Since then, Scofield Transfer & Recycling has invested heavily in Mack trucks. Of the business’ 30 total trucks, 20 of them are Macks.

“My son and I eat, breathe, and sleep Mack trucks,” Bruce said. “They’re durable and built for what we do. I mean, we’ve got a ’98 Mack that still runs to this day. And they’re very easy to work on. We can get the parts we need even for old models. Other brands just don’t do that.”

In fact, the Scofields’ love of Mack trucks runs so deep that in March 2024, Tyler Scofield named his son “Mack.” The Scofields’ most recent truck purchase—a 2025 Mack Granite—features a custom nameplate dedicating the vehicle “to Mack Scofield.”

Anatomy of an aerial stunt

That dedicated Granite is the vehicle Bruce used for the aerial stunt at Wings Over Batavia. Bruce—who is also a pilot—received a call from California-based pilot Eric Tucker, asking if he could borrow Bruce’s Piper J-3 Cub. Tucker had been asked to perform a stunt—landing on a moving ambulance—for the Wings Over Batavia Air Show, and he didn’t want to fly his own plane all the way from California to New York for the event.

Bruce said, “Sure. What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m going to land it on an ambulance,” Tucker said.

“So do you have an ambulance you’re going to bring here, too?” Bruce asked.

“Well, that’s the thing,” Tucker said. “The ambulance we were going to use broke down. I’ll probably have to rent a U-Haul truck.”

Then Bruce had an idea: “What if you landed on a roll-off truck?”

Tucker was excited about the idea. He said it would be the first time there’d ever been a plane landing on a garbage truck in the United States.

Bruce got to work on building a platform for the top of the roll-off box. The platform itself was 8 feet wide and 22 feet long; when the plane landed, it would have just six inches of margin on each side, requiring immense precision. Both the truck and the plane would need to be going no slower than 48mph and no faster than 50mph to safely execute the landing.

On the day of the air show, Tucker’s partner drove the truck, while Bruce rode in the passenger seat.

“Eric and the driver were communicating on the radio and gradually both simultaneously letting off the throttle,” Bruce said. “That way, the tail of the plane would set down on the truck, and then the truck came to a stop. It's a lot. They make it look easy, but it's a work of art how they did it.”

Bruce said he chose the Mack Granite for the stunt because it’s the best truck in his fleet.

“It’s the pride of our fleet,” Bruce said. “I wanted it picture-perfect for all the photos. Plus, the Granite has the automatic mDRIVE™ transmission, so that made it easier for the driver.”

Conclusion

The aerial stunt ended up being a crowd favorite and becoming a great promotional opportunity for Scofield Transfer & Recycling.

“We still hear about it almost every week,” Bruce said. “People say, ‘I was at the air show. I saw the video.’ In business, you want that type of exposure. I'm a small, family-owned business, and anytime you get some of this unique publicity, it's priceless.”