Masters of the Air--coming to Apple TV

[Jim K]

It would be interesting to find out how much it would cost to make a number of replica B-17s, sufficient number to support the flying scenes...

(never mind the challenge of getting enough crews to do formation flying...)

They should've gotten the Bally Bomber, replicated it a couple hundred times, and used a little forced perspective. Single pilot, mogas. Probably cheaper than CGI. Might be hard to find pilots to volunteer for the flak scenes though.

 

[MauleSkinner]

They should've gotten the Bally Bomber, replicated it a couple hundred times, and used a little forced perspective. Single pilot, mogas. Probably cheaper than CGI. Might be hard to find pilots to volunteer for the flak scenes though.

I would think a couple of large scale RC airplanes would be able to reasonably depict some of it, too.

 

[Velocity173]

It’s like the C-47s used in Band of Brothers. One of my favorite scenes of the series is the Normandy Invasion departure scenes. They used 4 real C-47s and the rest were CGI. It was a perfect mix of real and fake.

So far, Masters of the Air is no Band of Brothers.

 

[Mahneuvers]

..."633 Squadron"... "The Shepherd"..."Masters of the Air"...

Lousy weather today. I finished both episodes of MotA, 633, started Shepherd but am now sidetracked by the UNC game. Plan to go for a run later so I'm not a complete slug!

 

[FastEddieB]

So far, Masters of the Air is no Band of Brothers.

It's been a long time, but I recall Band of Brothers took a while to set up the characters, starting with boot camp.

Character development takes a while, so I'll be patient. Not that there was any lack of action in the first two episodes.

 

[Velocity173]

It's been a long time, but I recall Band of Brothers took a while to set up the characters, starting with boot camp.

Character development takes a while, so I'll be patient. Not that there was any lack of action in the first two episodes.

Nothing wrong with character development in Masters of the Air. My problem is with not mixing real aircraft with CGI. BoB did that and it looked great. I agree with the other comments about how this CGI isn’t even really done that well. At least not on par considering its budget.

 

[Mahneuvers]

I just finished The Shepherd. The story resonated. In 1952, my wife's grandfather was flying for American Airlines. Above an overcast layer over NYC, a T33 who had experienced a complete electrical failure came along side. They could only communicate through gestures. The T33 followed him, wing tip to wing tip, through the overcast layer breaking out at 800 feet to land a LaGuardia. The story was featured on a popular TV show at the time named "I've Got a Secret".

Tragically, in 1960, her grandfather was killed during a check flight in a 707 off of NYC. When flight 800 went down in the same area 36 years later, the recovery efforts pulled up wreckage from his 707. The family was able to get a few artifacts from her grandfather's plane.

 

[wanttaja]

Nothing wrong with character development in Masters of the Air. My problem is with not mixing real aircraft with CGI. BoB did that and it looked great.

Whoa...the only "CGI" Battle of Britain used was some really cheesy effects of planes exploding in the distance. The producers of BOB also had considerable luck finding actual flying aircraft, with the Heinkels and Messserschmidt coming from the Spanish Air Force in operable condition, including crews. Even so, they were only able to find ~3 flyable Hurricanes.

And don't forget, the Messserschmidts weren't Messserschmidts, but post-war reproductions with ENTIRELY the wrong forward fuselage contours to fit Merlin engines. It bothered me as a 13-year old, it still bothers me now except now I know why they used the HA-1112s. Heinkels had the wrong engines, too, but it wasn't as obvious.

Comment was made about using a fleet of Bally Bombers. Don't know if that was meant to be facetious or not, but the Bally bomber lines are modified to fit a full-size human into a small fuselage...

I believe "Masters of the Air" is using at least one full-size B-17, at least as a prop for some of the ground sequences. GOOD interiors.

A good comparison in the "Twelve O'Clock High" TV series, where they had one B-17 for ground shots and, occasionally, flight shots. But 12O'H had the advantage of being willing to use a LOT of actual WWII footage that wouldn't meld well with modern high definition filming. Get pretty tired of the same shots of BF-109s turning toward the camera, P-51s firing, the same five-hole pattern when the B-17s were hit, Mantz belly-landing the B-17 through the tent, etc.

Curtiss Lemay was invited the premiere of the original "Twelve O'Clock High" movie. He showed up b*tching about how "Hollywood never gets it right." He was told that the movie contained only ONE technical error...and that he wouldn't notice it.

He didn't.

I was amused that "Masters of the Air" made the same error. Just about had to, considering ~90 years of air-combat movies has led the movie-going public to expect it.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[wanttaja]

Whilst we're talking about Hollywood magic...here's a scene of Chris George in "The 1000 Plane Raid" right after he crashes his B-17 taking off to lead said raid.


Those paying attention will realize that's NOT a B-17 wing burning behind him.....

(photo is from James F. Farmer's book, "Broken Wings: Hollywood's Air Crashes.")

Movie DID have the best real-world buzz jobs, though.....

Ron Wanttaja

 

[tsts4]

It’s like the C-47s used in Band of Brothers. One of my favorite scenes of the series is the Normandy Invasion departure scenes. They used 4 real C-47s and the rest were CGI. It was a perfect mix of real and fake.

So far, Masters of the Air is no Band of Brothers.

I agree, but I’m still liking it so far. I would have liked a bit more setup like they did for Band of Brothers and The Pacific, but I can live with it since I way more familiarity with the subject matter as I did my Air War College paper on the Strategic Bombing Campaign plus as I have mentioned my dad was a bombardier. I too wish the CGI was better, more like Avatar and less Red Tails.

 

[FastEddieB]

I would have liked a bit more setup like they did for Band of Brothers and The Pacific…

I, too, expected the first episode to emphasize the dynamics and dangers of flight training, maybe following one or several trainees through the rigors of preparing for combat.

I have not seen “The Pacific”. Recommended? And I don’t clearly remember “12 O’clock High”. Worth watching in conjunction with “Masters Of The Air”?

 

[tsts4]

I, too, expected the first episode to emphasize the dynamics and dangers of flight training, maybe following one or several trainees through the rigors of preparing for combat.

I have not seen “The Pacific”. Recommended?

Yeah, I’d recommend it. But It’s different than BoB so don’t expect a USMC version. Maybe give the first couple of episodes a try and see what you think.

 

[wanttaja]

...And I don’t clearly remember “12 O’clock High”. Worth watching in conjunction with “Masters Of The Air”?

I'm a big fan of "12 O'Clock High" in all its iterations...movie, TV series, book.

The TV show is different from "Masters of the Air" in that it doesn't address the overall policy questions; it's basically just a setting for drama based on the characters. It has its hits, it has its duds. More hits than duds in the first season. The first episode, "The Golden Boy Had Nine Black Sheep" is one of the best, using the "Gately" sub-plot from the movie and book. "Those Who Are About to Die," and "The Lorelei" are two more good episodes.

The first episode of the second season is one of the best, too, though for me, it marks the start of the decline of the series. General Savage, the main character in the first season, is killed in an encounter with a captured German B-17, and his deputy (the same man in "Golden Boy") takes over as commander. The producers of the series wanted a "heartthrob" type to attract more female viewers to the program, so they replaced the rather grim Robert Lansing with the more matinee-idol Paul Burke. Oddly enough, the men were about the same age. Also replaces John Larkin as Savage's boss with Andrew Duggan (Larkin had died).

Like all early '60s TV series, it's fun to watch the stars of the future in some of their first roles. William Shatner, Peter Fonda, Glenn Corbett, Bruce Dern, etc.

The series is available on Amazon Prime.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Jim K]

I have not seen “The Pacific”. Recommended? And I don’t clearly remember “12 O’clock High”. Worth watching in conjunction with “Masters Of The Air”?

BoB is probably my favorite television of all time. We're in the midst of re watching the series for I think the fifth time, in part to get in the mindset to watch MotA. That said, I watched the first three episodes of The Pacific and bailed. There was so much going on, and they expected you to know the characters by sight which I struggle with even when they're not wearing uniforms. They follow three unrelated stories and jump around between them. I got confused and didn't enjoy it.

I think we're going to try it again though. It's been a few years. I'm debating whether to watch it before subscribing to apple+ for MotA or just do it now so I can watch along with all you.

 

[geezer]

CGI, and not CGI from the Memphis Belle movie, which both my wife and I very much enjoyed.

There was an internal set of expert critics who passed on each segment of the movie, as it was filmed. They called out a B 24 crash scene as too garish fires, too violent ground sliding action, and unrealistic abandonment by the crew.

They were informed that the scene in question was the B 24 lost in filming, the entire scene was real live crash and burn, the crew was running for their real lives, and cared less what they looked like. I knew of this complaint before seeing the movie, and agreed with the committee. Real high octane gas does make an unbelievable amount of furiously burning hell when large fuel tanks are ruptured, and a crippled landing on soft grass provides unexpected dig ins and swerves as parts of the plane fail.

The CGI in Memphis Belle bothered me some, but the over all visual effect was well done. I would pay to see it again, on a big movie screen.

Top Gun 2, on the other hand, forgettable, and no interest in TG 3.

The Geezer is old enough to have seen real, large formations of bombers flying over, enroute to ferrying to Europe.

There was a flight school for C 47 pilots at what is now KLOU, and normal landings sent their shadows down our street for landing. The interval was often one a minute.

 

[Velocity173]

That’s another thing. Out of 8 airworthy B-17s in the world, they were able to get 5 for The Memphis Belle movie. The take off scene in it, you really get a feel for a squadron departing for war. You just don’t get that same feeling in Masters.

There’s a reason why Tom Cruise insisted on real aircraft in TG Maverick. He knows that CGI just can’t compare to the real deal.

 

[wanttaja]

That’s another thing. Out of 8 airworthy B-17s in the world, they were able to get 5 for The Memphis Belle movie. The take off scene in it, you really get a feel for a squadron departing for war. You just don’t get that same feeling in Masters.

One of the B-17s was destroyed during the filming of "Memphis Belle". Three other B-17s have been destroyed since. The producers of MOTA would probably have been hard-pressed to get a single three-ship element together.

In any case, there's no way to reproduce in the real world the sight of a complete bomb group forming up and flying formation, especially in bad weather. Bomb group is 36 airplanes (three squadrons).

You may prefer the scenes of the squadron departing for war in "Memphis Belle," but I don't think that's the fault of the CGI...it's how they decided to depict such scenes.

There's one thing you don't see in MOTA: B-17 tailwheels in flight. I believe all B-17s currently flying have their tailwheels locked down. DOES affect the look of the aircraft, like Merlins on BF-109s.

One of the things the CGI of MOTA that I like is the CLOSURE RATE of the fighters on head-on attacks. Nobody has dared to film an actual B-17 and an actual BF-109 (Harrumph, HA-1112) on an actual gunnery pass that just skims over the top of the bomber. In MOTA, the fighters are just briefly-glimpsed flickers...closing at ~500 MPH. Don't know if the closure rate is accurately modeled, but that was probably what it felt like. Those briefly-glimpsed flickers weren't grainy 80-year-old footage, and they were occasionally planes that haven't flown since the '40s (JU-88s in the second episode).

There’s a reason why Tom Cruise insisted on real aircraft in TG Maverick. He knows that CGI just can’t compare to the real deal.

Hmmm.... recall, though, that the ENTIRE FINALE of the movie was centered on a CGI F-14....

I think the CGI is acceptable, but there needed to be more folks with real-world experience planning the sequences. The Greenland go-around is an example where this would have helped. That was one of the problems with the movie "Flyboys" as well. The CGI wasn't that bad, it was just they were showing planes flying in a non-realistic way.

Comments have been made relative to this series and its predecessors, "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific." My wife and I love Band of Brothers, and have watched the whole series a half-dozen times or so. We've watched The Pacific through twice. Not as enjoyable. Agree with the comments that the characters in The Pacific are harder to keep track of. Sadly, Masters of the Air seems to be that way, as well. Part of that is probably due to the realistic depiction of the combat environment...we see actors all wearing the same B-3 coats and flak jackets, wearing leather helmets (and sometimes steel helmets), with oxygen masks covering most of their faces. We have trouble tracking who is who in that situation; probably needs captions every time a character is shown.

Such equipment was often left off in the Twelve O'Clock High TV series... pilots flew in the lightweight A-2 jackets, with headphones clamped over their service caps, no oxygen masks, pressing the throat mike down into their throats whenever they talked on the radio. Even when they did wear oxygen masks, they often took them off to glower at the camera as they contemplated complications in the plotline.

But...it's a story that needed telling. Lest we forget.

Ron "Fighter pilots make movies...bomber pilots make history!" Wanttaja

 

[Jim K]

Are there even any B17's currently flying after the loss of Texas Raiders? I'm pretty sure Aluminum Overcast is still down for repairs. Who else is there? Ye Olde Pub, Yankee lady, and Sentimental Journey....are they flying again yet after the wing spar AD thing? List is getting pretty short

 

[Lndwarrior]

So i get a text from my sister last night. She's at the Commerative Air Force Base in Mesa, home of Sentimental Journey. She's doing some training as she'll be touring with the B-17 again this summer. The whole squadron is there watching Masters of the Air. And the best part - they used the recordings of Sentimental Journey for the B-17 sound effects in the series. Dad would have been so proud of her!

 

[Velocity173]

Are there even any B17's currently flying after the loss of Texas Raiders? I'm pretty sure Aluminum Overcast is still down for repairs. Who else is there? Ye Olde Pub, Yankee lady, and Sentimental Journey....are they flying again yet after the wing spar AD thing? List is getting pretty short

Well about 10 airworthy today. Filming started in 2021 though so no telling how many airworthy 3 years ago.

List of surviving Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jim_CAK]

I didn't find the CGI that bad. Sure beats using optical effects to multiply the number of aircraft ("633 Squadron"), setting up flat silhouettes of B-17s for the ground shots (1990's "Memphis Belle"), or painting ME-109s in British colors to pad the ranks of the Hurricanes in "Battle of Britain" (What, you DIDN'T notice!!!???).
View attachment 124784

Face it, ladies and gents, there barely enough B-17s left in the world to display a full bomb group, even on the ground. There's not enough flyable B-17s in the world to fly a single squadron. The times when enough get together to form even a single element is rare enough. And we expect movie producers to snap their fingers and scarf up all the flyable B-17s in the world?

If they do try it, look in the background...you'll probably see some OD-painted Electras, DC-7s, and any other four-engined prop transport they can find to make up a "real" squadron.

Otherwise, the moviemakers are left with trying to do it with models. I'm sure no one would be complaining if they had....

CGI allows them to reproduce real-world scenarios that we'd never see again. I'm sorry about the wrong rudder motion or the speed of the Greenland go-around. But it did give us those great "drone" shots showing the line of Forts taxiing down between the hardstands, and the squadrons struggling to join up coming through the clouds. And the skies filled with those majestic Boeing airplanes with all their doors in place....

It reminded me a lot of the filmed version of "The Shepherd." Again, mostly CGI, but of hard-to-find planes flying on a moonlit night. Looked cool.

Being a movie buff, I have my own peeves about shows like this. Salutes, for me, are a big one. Many actors and directors don't know what a salute is supposed to look like. The "Monarch" series on Apple+ is a very bad example of this. Only seen one or two salutes in "Masters of the Air," but the ones I noticed looked right. Referred to an RAF officer as "Captain"; the RAF doesn't HAVE captains. Group Captains, yes, but that's the equivalent of a full colonel. Not likely to find one bar-hopping or getting into a fist fight with Yanks.

I think the sets and the equipment looks dead-on. REAL impressed they found enough B-3 flying coats (the fleece ones) to equip so many actors. And you'll notice if they AREN'T going to be flying, they're wearing A-2 jackets. Exactly the way it should be, original A-2s were a windbreaker only, with no insulation. The trucks and Jeeps have the usual Hollywood mistake (they're too clean...NOBODY in wartime washes a utility vehicle) but at least the Jeeps are wartime models (there might be some CJ-2As, -3As, or -5s in there, but I haven't spotted them yet.)

There are deviances from the standard equipment. I saw men wearing goggles that I thought were WWII Navy goggles, but googling goggles revealed the AN6530 were worn by both services. Spotted one gunner wearing RAF Mk 7 goggles, and one of the lead characters has an obvious non-standard fleece flying jacket. But these things do happen in wartime; the individuals could have picked up these pieces informally.

Otherwise... well, I'm not too impressed with the story lines so far, but we'll see if they pick up. I have always been willing to extend the Suspension of Disbelief that accompanies all fiction. Heck, I enjoy the movie "Gravity" despite 40 years in the space business.....

Ron Wanttaja

You mentioned the flying jackets and some of the other equipment used in the series. I ran across this YouTube video talking about how they had jackets and other props made. I am enjoying the series. It is better than most programs available on TV. As of now - it is free. I am still watching on the free Apple TV trial. (Edit - I just looked up The Sheppard you guys mentioned earlier in this thread. I watched it - I did not remember the name)

 

[Velocity173]

Yeah I went with the free trial just for Masters of the Air. I did watch the Ted Lasso series as well. That was good.

 

[Velocity173]

Regensburg GE. Flown past there many times and wondered about the violence that was overhead 60 + years prior.

 

[DavidWhite]

crossposted from my facebook:

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR EPISODE 3 OF MASTERS OF THE AIR (Not that you should care, read the book)

Details matter. For $350 MILLION DOLLARS you should have the budget to get the details right. I am willing to suspend my disbelief to a certain extent to accomodate for ****ty CGI and the limitations that it entails. Why they didn’t use a real airplane, I’ll never know. In 2018 there was a B17 that was mostly restored for sale for $9 million dollars, they could have restored it to flying condition and donated it to a museum or something for a tax writeoff, and still probably saved a bunch of money over the crappy CGI in almost every scene with a plane in it. Anyways, that’s not the point of this post but the people saying that it was impossible to use a real airplane for at the very least some of the flying scenes a la Memphis Belle are wrong.

So, I was getting along just fine for the first 20 minutes or so of the episode, disbelief happily suspended until one of the air battle scenes where the germans launched a “rocket” at a B17. I say “rocket” because this was depicted in the show as a real honest to god guided missile. I sometimes wonder if Hollywood doesn’t hire a single person who has ever read a book before as a historical advisor. It arced towards the plane and blew it up like some real top gun ****. Alright, disbelief unsuspended. A few minutes later Major Cleven gets his airplane all shot up. This did actually happen on this mission, and in real life this led to hydraulic and electrical issues, and a large hole in the nose plexiglass. In the show this is depicted as a complete jamming of the control column, a loss of the left rudder authority, a complete blowout of the nose plexiglass, and of course, “a fire on number 3.” So, Major Cleven very heroically tells his copilot to stay put and that they can “control the plane with trim.”

Alright, so you’re on fire, you have no working flight controls, and you’re gonna tough it out? The continuity in this episode is horrible, because they never actually show a resolution to *ANY* of these problems. Nevermind that it’d probably be pretty damn hard to control a plane with an engine out on the right side and NO left rudder. But thankfully our plucky heroes happily saunter on to Africa and (very heroically) within sight of the airport run out of gas and feather the 3 remaining engines whilst (very heroically) dropping the landing gear mere inches above the ground and coasting to a stop. During this scene, they depict the #3 engine as having had the propeller depart the aircraft, but wait, what is that? The hub is still attached? Yeah, those engine fires will burn right clean through those propeller blades….

And while they were heroically coasting to a stop? They managed to unfeather all 3 of the engines. Great job guys.

The first picture is of an actual B17 that shed a prop. Notice the rather large gaping hole and lack of a propeller hub. (I couldn’t get this picture to load on PoA for some reason, sorry)

The second picture is the prop hub sans blades pictured in the show

The third picture is the heroic feathered engine glide to the runway in Africa (which never happened)

The fourth picture is the aforementioned airplane mere moments later. Now, if they were using a real plane as a backdrop I could forgive this, but it’s all CGI crap anyways and they still couldn’t get it right….

Now I could spend literally days going through every single little thing that this show gets wrong, and believe me they get a lot more wrong than they do right, but how could so many weird plot holes and continuity issues exist in such a big budget drama with big names behind it?


Please Hollywood for the love of god hire an actual historical advisor, and maybe someone with a vague notion of how planes work. Tom Cruise would have knocked this out of the park.

 

[tsts4]

I find it a bit amusing how you guys are getting wrapped up in these visual details that 99.9% of those watching won't notice or understand if they did. Yes, I'd love it too if they could make it as close to 100% accurate as was possible along with maximum use of practical effects of CGI. However, with all of its faults I'm still enjoying it and very appreciative of the effort to tell this story which represents not only the men of the 100th BG and 8AF, but also the other 2 Million+ men who ultimately served in the Air Force in WWII (initially the Army Air Corps and then the Army Air Force). Being that my father served in WWII as a Bombardier and I'm retired USAF myself, I'm pretty well versed in the history. What this series does (along with BoB and Pacific), for all its faults is expose this important bit of American history to a couple of generations that most likely have no clue.

 

[Pugs]

I find it a bit amusing how you guys are getting wrapped up in these visual details that 99.9% of those watching won't notice or understand if they did.

My irk is it takes just as much effort to do it wrong than to do it right and it’s not like Hollywood can’t find experts on pretty much any topic.

 

[Bob Noel]

If the viewer is paying attention to errors in the background, then the director/writers/actors have failed to capture the audience.

 

[Velocity173]

I don’t know, for 99.9 % of the people who don’t care about details, sure are a lot of bad user reviews here. The whole thing just feels contrived to me. A noble effort that falls short of what I’d expect considering the budget they had.

Masters of the Air (TV Mini Series 2024) - IMDb

Masters of the Air (TV Mini Series 2024) on IMDb: Movies, TV, Celebs, and more...

www.imdb.com

 

[tsts4]

Sigh, OK like it or don't like it. It's not the greatest television I've ever seen, but certainly not the worst. As retired military I'm usually hyper critical of miliary related inaccuracies in movies and TV as well, (eg I didn't care for the Midway remake), but I guess for sentimental reasons and my personal connection to the subject matter has me watching through rose-colored glasses.

 

[DavidWhite]

My irk is it takes just as much effort to do it wrong than to do it right and it’s not like Hollywood can’t find experts on pretty much any topic.

Yep. If you’re going to CGI the whole thing at least put in some effort and make it right.

 

[Bob Noel]

Yep. If you’re going to CGI the whole thing at least put in some effort and make it right.

yeah, like the visual effects in Apollo 13... Lovell "buzzes" his house and the jet leaves a contrail

 

[Brad W]

I recognize that there's a dance between making it appealing for those who know and appealing to the general public who just don't know and really don't care.
but

I do think if they give those "don't know/care" folks a chance, they might realize that when something is more genuine there is a certain appeal that shines through. The appeal to others to be honest, real, and genuine applies to almost anything in life.

I honestly think in large part that exactly is what is so appealing about these sorts of movies to begin with. Not just pure fiction, but it really happened. A story such as Band of Brothers is many levels better than any pure fictional war movie.

In my opinion, you can get the opposite sense in these movies where the characters do absolutely over-the-top unbelievable stunts or other feats.... the ones where even a kid will say, that's impossible!...or that's stupid!

 

[Country Flier]

Whelp, made it 9 minutes in before shutting it off. Craptacular.

The scene that did me in:

They level off a crippled-once-flaming bomber literally 100 feet above a cloud deck, then fly along in the clear, in level flight 100 feet above that cloud deck over Germany, while being repeatedly attacked by fighters, while waiting for their injured navigator to give them a heading home (because west and 100 feet lower for some reason doesn’t occur to them).

Wow writing this series must be difficult (and in the dark) with your head that far up your a$$.

 

[DavidWhite]

Whelp, made it 9 minutes in before shutting it off. Craptacular.

The scene that did me in:

They level off a crippled-once-flaming bomber literally 100 feet above a cloud deck, then fly along in the clear, in level flight 100 feet above that cloud deck over Germany, while being repeatedly attacked by fighters, while waiting for their injured navigator to give them a heading home (because west and 100 feet lower for some reason doesn’t occur to them).

Wow writing this series must be difficult (and in the dark) with your head that far up your a$$.

I don’t think I’m going to bother watching any more of it.

 

[OneCharlieTango]

You know what’s really hard to believe? It’s the fact that so many of the characters, male and female, are so pretty. Real people don’t look like that.

But when I look at photos of the actual 1940’s air crews and think about what they did, and how many of them died in their teens and twenties, and how many came home wounded and went on to live quiet lives, raise families and build this country, I realize they really were beautiful.

Movies shouldn’t look like life looks; they should feel like life feels.

 

[Mtns2Skies]

Okay wtf is up with the air to air rockets? I did my best researching trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but no. At that point in the war there were no rockets. Who thinks of this stuff?

 

[X3 Skier]

Okay wtf is up with the air to air rockets? I did my best researching trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but no. At that point in the war there were no rockets. Who thinks of this stuff?

This exhibit at the National Museum of the USAF has a German Air to Air Missile deployed later in the war. Obviously, the series has a time warp encounter allowing it to be used against the 100th.

Ruhrstahl X-4 Air-to-Air Missile

Allied bombing success in Germany during World War II led the Germans to develop air-to-air missiles. The X-4 was to be launched from fighter planes against B-17 bombers. This missile, like the

www.nationalmuseum.af.mil

 

[Iflydogs]

Did anyone watch the episode tonight? Why won’t my A&P ride on my engine and fix my magneto timing as I taxi? No dedication these days.

 

[Initial Fix]

With all the naysaying. I liked the show and will be watching the next few episodes.

 

[Iflydogs]

With all the naysaying. I liked the show and will be watching the next few episodes.

I agree. I am enjoying it immensely. It is not a documentary and if you are the type of person who is concerned they didn’t use the correct torque spec for that bolt for that particular model of left- handed nose inhalers in that time period, well, this show is not for you. I love it and many scenes bring tears to my eyes.