Open Air Driver

As the battle wears on and the parts go flying, what better way to highlight the destruction and up the stakes for our heroes than by destroying what little there is in the way of protection and breaking a hole and exposing the driver to the elements?

This is mostly to indicate that this is truly the final battle and everything is on the line. It is often a good way to showcase the characters Ace Pilot skills, in that they are using a crack in the cockpit or the open air to fight with instead of all their usual instruments.

Often a Speculative Fiction trope, as the best vehicles that could conceivably have a good cockpit to open up are a Humongous Mecha or a Cool Ship, though breaking open the window is a good substitute in less futuristic works and basically works as a Broken Faceplate for vehicles. For that reason, Instant Convertible is pretty related but distinct.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Gundam:
  • Mobile Suit Gundam The Gouf and the Gundam both get their cockpits opened up in their final fight. The Gundam's opening is far smaller, somewhat showing that if they had even suits Ramba Ral might have won.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ:
    • In their first battle, Judau and Mashymere fight with open cockpits. This was accidental on Judau's part, as after Falling into the Cockpit he couldn't figure out how to close it. Mashymere thought it was an act of bravado which he felt obligated to match.
    • In the final battle with the Psyco Gundam II, Judau opens up the Psyco's head with a Newtype empowered beam saber. This reveals to him that the pilot Ple II is a clone of Elpeo Ple, who had just made a Heroic Sacrifice to save Judau.
    • Glemy opens the hatch of the Queen Mansa during his battle with Judau to show him and Ple-2 that he fights for what he calls a nobler cause than the errant junk collector turned pilot. Judau is undeterred by his words and saves Ple-2 from the still open cockpit and Roux takes advantage of the opening to completely obliterate Glemy with her beam rifle.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team: In the final battle the EZ-8 has its cockpit exposed by enemy fire. This puts Shiro and Aina in harms way as they deliver the final blow to the Apsalus and Aina's brother. In the ending it is shown that they survived.
  • When Quatre has a freak out in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing and fights Heero and Trowa, the battle rips apart Trowa's mech. After Taking the Bullet for Heero again, the mech explodes shortly after, though Trowa survives.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, the final battle between Kira and Athrun tears open the Strike's cockpit. This is done to raise the tension when Kira nearly dies, as Athrun self destructs the Aegis while attached to the Strike.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 00: In the final battle Setsuna and Ribbons slash open each other's Gundams. In a Mythology Gag it happens the exact same way as in the original Gundam. Also, an Actor Allusion, Ribbons has the same Japanese voice actor as Amuro.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans opens up the Barbatos Lupus Rex in its final battle. Which is a pretty big deal, considering that this series really averts Armor Is Useless and has one of the sturdiest Mechs in all Gundam. Sure enough, Mikazuki only has a few moments of life left in him.
• In the final battle with Lord Genome in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the Lagann's canopy gets broken off by Genome's furious attacks, leaving Simon exposed as he continues fighting him. This also puts him face to face with Lord Genome, who wasn't even using a mecha at this point.

Comic Books

• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel): In the famous issue #34 "Shakedown!", Ace and Lady Jaye are taking a modified Skystriker on a shakedown flight meant to test several new features. Meanwhile, Wild Weasel is likewise taking the Baroness on a flight to familiarise her with modifications to the Rattlers. Their paths cross when the Skystriker's new radar systems inadvertently alert Wild Weasel to its presence, leading to an aerial duel with both pilots pitting their aircraft and skills against each other (while Baroness and Lady Jaye act as The Watson, which allows them to explain what they're doing and why). Ace manages to riddle the Rattler's cockpit with bullets, but while the cockpit is trashed Wild Weasel is saved thanks to a titanium "bathtub" inside the cockpit. Baroness then utilises the Rattler's gun turret and manages to shatter Ace's cockpit (damaging his helmet in the process). Ace does warn the loss of the canopy and helmet might hinder him, while Wild Weasel admits that he's suffered injuries from the earlier attack, but both pilots still fight to a draw and retreat when they realise they're both completely out of ammunition. Most famously, they fly by and salute one another before withdrawing.

Film - Live Action

• The first Airport disaster movie has a mid-air collision create a gaping hole in the cockpit, which suctions out the flight crew. This leaves only a cross-eyed stewardess to operate the aircraft with its Billions of Buttons.
• Avatar: In the final battle Sully damages Quaritch's window on his Mini-Mecha. Undeterred by Pandora's atmosphere he opens the canopy to continue the fight.
• In Battle of the Bulge, Telly Savalas and his crew keep fighting from an M24 Chaffee tank that - incredibly - has had its turret blown off, exposing the interior, but which is otherwise completely undamaged.
• John Wick: Chapter 4: During the climactic battle in Paris, John takes the wheel of a 1971 Plymouth Cuda, which gets both its doors and windshield torn off but otherwise proves no worse for gunfights.
• Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior has Max drive a tanker truck out of the refinery, which the Marauders eagerly pursue. One Marauder team manages to throw a grappling hook into the driver's side door, and yank it free. This leaves Max's left side exposed to hostile fire. Further along, a crazed Wez hops onto the cab's roof, where he goes all bashy-smashy with a mace, destroying the windshield. Most of the fractured safety glass gets pushed away by Max and the feral kid.
• In the Car Chase that opens Quantum of Solace, James Bond is sideswiped by a truck which tears the door off of his bulletproof car, a vulnerability that the pursuing carload of gunmen do their best to exploit. However Bond uses it to his advantage by firing a burst through the exposed door frame to take them out as they come alongside.
• Raiders of the Lost Ark: The transport truck carrying the Ark has its windows broken when Indy is put through them. Indy returns the favor and puts the driver through the other window.
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022): In the final battle, Super Sonic cuts open and decapitates the giant mech Robotnik created to make a point. Robotnik still tries to fight but that just ends with Sonic knocking it over.
• Star Trek: Nemesis: In the final battle the Scimitar breaks open the cockpit of the Enterprise-E. It helps emphasize how desperate the stakes are when Picard is forced to ram the Scimitar after all the conventional weapons run dry.
• Often occurs in the Terminator films, usually to show that the namesake terminators don't need protection.
  • The Terminator only does this temporarily as the Terminator punches a hole through the window trying to kill Sarah Connor. Since the vehicle is easily identified, the heroes switch cars to another one.
  • Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Late in the film, the T-1000 breaks through the cockpit of the police helicopter circling the Cyberdyne building and pursues the heroes, unconcerned over the hole in the window.
  • Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, when the T-X needs to shake off the T-850 from her crane, she hits him into a passing firetruck. Undeterred, it commandeers the vehicle through the broken windshield before even giving the fire crew time to process what is going on.
  • In Terminator Genisys, Pops gets flung onto a car, with his head breaking through the windshield. He's a little more gentle about telling the driver to leave the car than the other films.
  • In Terminator: Dark Fate, Grace throws makeshift spears made from rebar at the pursuing Rev-9. The machine considers this a nuisance at worst and breaks the windshield to send its liquid metal half in pursuit.
• While saving his daughter in the climax of True Lies, Harry Tasker has the windshield of his borrowed harrier get gunned off. It actually comes in handy for his daughter, who is hanging on to the damn jet for dear life, to have something to hold onto while he flies around.

Literature

• The Bone Maker: Kreya and Zera race through a monster-infested valley in a magical Spider Tank and have to direct it to climb a sheer cliff face even after its canopy is destroyed. Zera is loudly terrified, while Kreya, the tank's creator, is quietly terrified.

Live-Action TV

• Star Trek: Voyager: During the final battle in the "Year of Hell" episodes, the Voyager has a hole in the bridge, with a makeshift Force Field keeping Janeway inside. Janeway has the Voyager ram the time weapon, and the resulting time ripples return everything to how it was before the time weapon existed.

Video Games

• Command & Conquer: Both Generals and Red Alert 3 have units with a Sniping the Cockpit ability that does no damage to vehicles but makes them inert, requiring an infantry unit to go inside to reclaim (by any side). The fact that there's a hole in the windshield doesn't affect them in any way, and the same ability can be repeatedly used on the same vehicle.
• Halo: In several games, it is possible for the driver's canopy of the UNSC Scorpion to be blown off, leaving the driver directly vulnerable to enemy fire.
• In Mass Effect 3, commandeered Cerberus mechs have a busted open front window when you take them over. This usually comes from you Sniping the Cockpit, but the one you take over in the middle of repairs also has one, likely the cause of said repairs.
• When Solid Snake disables the Rex's radar dome in Metal Gear Solid, Liquid has to make do by opening up the cockpit and piloting by sight. The designer, Otacon, actually deliberately made it this way so the Rex would have a weak point. Years later, in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Snake himself would pilot the Rex out of the base, still with an open cockpit because it was left to decay.
• Metal Slug:
  • MS 4 has a light 4-legged walker with no cockpit and only a pair of vulcan cannons to keep it from being a waste of time. Predictably, it's invulnerable itself while offering no damage reduction (most vehicles can take 3 hits before the player has to eject). There are controllable animals in other games in the series with similar mechanics, however the Walking Machine doesn't even have the Action Bomb special ability animals and other SV-class vehicles do (for our animal-loving readers, the animals are unharmed; they trample anything in their path on their way to Stage Right).
  • MS 6 has the Protogunner, a deceidedly not-super prototype of the Slug Gunner Mini-Mecha from the previous game, which has the requisite pair of miniguns on each flank and a low-pressure cannon, but no armor.
• Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation Code Fairy: In the fight with Lilith's Pixie Gundam, Alma's Zaku II is heavily damaged and Alma is exposed. Seeing that the pilot is a young girl actually takes Lilith so off guard that Alma is able to make a hasty retreat before passing out.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2006): While Eggman often uses vehicles without armored cockpits, the battle with the Egg Viper is probably the only one where Sonic breaks open the canopy to attack Eggman directly. Doing so changes his attack pattern to not make himself vulnerable, until he is down to his last attack and gambles everything on one last charge that Sonic can thwart by targeting him directly.

Western Animation

• Star Trek: Lower Decks: When a magnetic debris field takes out another starship's energy, the Cerritos has all its systems powered down and the armor plating removed to stop the debris from being attracted to the ship. The bridge viewscreen is taken off to let the manual controls be optimized as they navigate with their suits display and lookouts calling out big chunks. Mariner nearly falls out and some debris cracks Ransom's helmet, but otherwise the crew gets by pretty well.