#PagingOSHA: Here's a practical effect: For the gag-filled comedy It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) stuntman [Frank Tallman](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Tallman) flew a [Beech model C-18S](
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Model_18) through a highway billboard advertising.
Wikipedia notes: A communications mix-up resulted in the use of linen graphic sheets on the sign rather than paper, as planned. Linen, much tougher than paper, damaged the plane on impact. Tallman managed to fly it back to the airstrip, discovering that the leading edges of the wings had been smashed all the way back to the wing spars. Tallman considered that incident the closest he ever came to dying on film. (Both Tallman and Paul Mantz, Tallman's business partner and fellow flier on Mad World, eventually died in separate air crashes over a decade apart.)