Realistic aviation movies?

Mid America Flight Museum and Lewis Air Legends might be the Tallichets of our time - and surely there may be others in the future.

Many museums, the one I volunteer at for sure, are hurting right now. Having to cancel airshows, rides and appearances essentially put last year's revenues at zero. Hoping this year is better.
 
That and the surplus aircraft just aren't available anymore.

The bigger problem is the parts aren't available any longer. The leftover stocks of WWII era parts were released into the civilian market in the '70's when most militaries finalized the move away from piston power. Until then, there was a supply chain for things like R-1820 cylinders and the like.

Now, that inventory has been largely consumed, so you're left going back into the "parts healing room" and digging through yesterday's reject parts to find the "best" bad cylinder off the shelf to have it repaired or reinstalled. Now, if you want to spend the bucks, there are boutique enterprises which will scratch build you an airframe, but supporting the systems (engines, props, tires, brakes, etc) remains a huge problem.
 
Has anyone seen Horizon Line yet? It's a new movie available for rent or purchase from a variety of sources, but the ratings are unimpressive (4.7 out of 10 on IMDB, and 29% on Rotten Tomatoes).

It was so horrible it was entertaining...


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I was talking with my kids not too long ago, about how the old war movies used to actually use real jeeps, tanks, army trucks and such...in huge numbers. In that regard things were so much better.....but there were aspects of cinematic style, and just the technology that in today's eye they look just cheesy.

I remember a time when surplus stores had stuff from WW2.

I do too, bins of it...although this would have been in the 1970's so I recon a lot of what I recall might have been viet nam era stuff too. I haven't seen many surplus stores around in the last long while.... The few I recall visiting in the last say 20 years or so have been mostly just retail camping stuff and military "styled" clothes and such.... not real surplus. I did find one a year or two back in Pensacolla and went in for browse that had quite a bit of actual military stuff....but not like I remember as a kid (but of course how much of that is perspective?)
 
Go to a surplus store near an active Army base, and you'll still find a lot of stuff. Mind you, I think little of it is actually "surplus" vs. stuff GIs take off-post and sell.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Not surprisingly, in Vietnam, restoration of old US war era abandoned military hardware such as jeeps and trucks to like new condition is a thing. They do that in Myanmar too, except those US vehicles date back to WWII.
 
Many museums, the one I volunteer at for sure, are hurting right now. Having to cancel airshows, rides and appearances essentially put last year's revenues at zero. Hoping this year is better.

I bought a really expensive T-shirt yesterday to support Planes of Fame in Chino...did my heart good. A neat P-40 on the back.
 
Well, these are 'Real' Aviation movies. I thought that I had reached the end of the internet looking for old flying movies. Came across this youtube channel today and was rather impressed;-) This guy has 'corrected' the speed of a lot of old footage. Check out Johan R. Ryheul's site. The ones that got me were '1st Army Flight at Ft. Meyer VA 1909, and Manfred Von Richthofen. There are a bunch more. He's got them set to some cool music. Rings my bell anyway...
 
Only an idiot director uses real airplanes in this day and age. Way cheaper to CG it. Most of the moving cars you see in the movies are CG too. Really dumb to spend all that money to make a handful of old men happy. Only pilots notice these things anyway.
 
I'm late to this party but "Speed and Angels" and "Tomcat Tales" are two documentaries about different aspects of Naval Aviation that I thought were very well done.

Nauga,
proud sponsor of Naval Aviation ;)
 
Only an idiot director uses real airplanes in this day and age. Way cheaper to CG it.
Unless you’re Tom Cruise and you tell the director no green screen for me as in his dive over the cliff helicopter scene from MI: Fallout.
 
I’ve always enjoyed “Executive Decision”. Kurt Russell trying to land a 747 as a newbie pilot is just classic fun. Two lesser known movies I’ve also enjoyed are “Flyboys” (WW I flick) and “Red Tails” (WW II flick).
 
I'm late to this party but "Speed and Angels" and "Tomcat Tales" are two documentaries about different aspects of Naval Aviation that I thought were very well done.

Nauga,
proud sponsor of Naval Aviation ;)

Both good, if a little pointy nose-centric. :D I still maintain the best movie about Naval Air is Bridges at Toko-Ri. Truly well done footage of early jets and carrier ops and as I got recalled several times to go back on combat deployments I understand Harry Brubaker's dilemma.
 
Both good, if a little pointy nose-centric. :D I still maintain the best movie about Naval Air is Bridges at Toko-Ri.
I loved Mickey Rooney's helicopter pilot role as well. Rooney was a pilot. Not sure he ever had any helicopter experience, but he was a Navion owner.
 
I thought The Aviator, the recent flick about Howard Hughes, was pretty bad physics-wise. The computer-generated airplanes looked great, but didn’t move anything like real airplanes would move.

The HR-1’s power-off, gear-up slide through the berry patch — after a cartoonish “flareout” — lasted eighteen seconds before the camera cut away, the airplane still moving at a good clip, seemingly a constant speed (maybe they were greaseberries?). Plenty of time for Leo to mug for the camera. Plus he handles the controls like it was a skiploader, rather than a high-performance airplane. Jimmy Stewart, at least, knew how to “fly” an airplane in the movies.

And how about sound? Over the Hollywood Hills Leo and Cate whisper and coo to each other in the cockpit of a Sikorsky S-38 (Hughes’ real airplane was an S-43) as “Moonglow” plays softly in the background. That would have been kinda tough with the din from the unmuffled R-1340’s and prop tips mere inches from the cabin roof.

In the interview on the bonus disc, director Scorsese admits that before making this movie he knew nothing about aviation. No kidding. Howard Hughes was passionate about technical accuracy in his films; he would have hated the aviation scenes in this movie.

Of course the Ernie Gann - William Wellman collaborations (The High And The MIghty; Island in The Sky) were very good technically. I loved the little bits of business in the C-47 cockpit by Andy Devine (an experienced pilot). You knew he knew what he was doing when he fiddled with that E6B.

Devine-E6B.JPG


I loved Mickey Rooney's helicopter pilot role as well. Rooney was a pilot. Not sure he ever had any helicopter experience, but he was a Navion owner.

How many extra seat cushions did Mick need in that Navion? :D
 
How many extra seat cushions did Mick need in that Navion? :D
None, most likely. My wife's shorter than Mickey, and while she always flew with a booster cushion in the Skyhawk, we chose the Navion because it was one of the few that her 5'1" and my 6'1" frames fit comfortably.
 
Of course the Ernie Gann - William Wellman collaborations (The High And The MIghty; Island in The Sky) were very good technically. I loved the little bits of business in the C-47 cockpit by Andy Devine (an experienced pilot). You knew he knew what he was doing when he fiddled with that E6B.

I love both of those movies. I've got them both on DVD and need to watch them again sometime.
 
All my camping gear as a kid came from army/navy surplus stores.
Mine, too. Lotsa WWII vintage stuff. My canteen had a 1943 date stamp, and the mess kit was from about the same time, I think. And a nice 1944-ish raincoat. The poncho I had was Vietnam surplus, I think.
 
Early days as a CAP cadet, we often bought our uniforms at the military surplus place.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Dunkirk - not a great movie but used 3 real Spitfires beautifully
 
The thing is we still have enough real aircraft around to make realistic scenes. In Redtails very little real Mustangs or B-17s were used. All they needed was a couple B-17s and 4-5 P-51s and you would have had some awesome footage.

I watched Redtails for about five minutes, and when scene with the pilots BS'ing with each other plane to plane in normal voice volume through unfastened oxygen masks and speaking some faux black dialect rolled, I decided to clean the cat boxes and wash my car.
 
I watched Redtails for about five minutes, and when scene with the pilots BS'ing with each other plane to plane in normal voice volume through unfastened oxygen masks and speaking some faux black dialect rolled, I decided to clean the cat boxes and wash my car.

I saw it opening night in the theater. Big let down. CGI completely over the top. Poor acting and writing. HBO’s Tuskegee Airmen so much better.
 
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