Aircraft mistakes in films

[Proplinerman]

Went to see "The King's speech" this weekend and found it an excellent film, but as a former planespotter, I couldn't help but notice a howler. At one point, the future King George VI's brother David, the future King Edward VIII, lands a Tiger Moth in a field, so correct, an aircraft of that era (mid-1930s). Unfortunately however, the registration of the aircraft is G-ANFM, which of course wouldn't have been allocated until the mid-1950s! Anyone else seen any similar howlers in films?

[stepwilk]

There's an entire website devoted to this, and not just aviation. Can't remember the name of it, but people spend hours watching films in order to notice the 50-odd "howlers" in each and every one, like the fact that the star's dinner fork had food residue on it in one take and not in the next one. Or than two jacket buttons were buttoned in one scene and only one in the next scene. Truly obsessional.

Yet even they wouldn't notice a 1950s registration on a 1930s airplane...

[Capetonian]

Just about every film I've seen that involves an aircraft shows a 747 in flight, but in the cockpit the pilot is always struggling with the controls of a twin-jet, and the cabin is narrow body.

[pulse1]

The old British version of Top Gun called High Flight and made in the 50's showed our rebellious hero taking off in a two seat Vampire T11 and then flying about in a single seat FB5. Otherwise some excellent air to air filming with piston Provosts and Hunters.

[Double Zero]

As an aviation photographer and almost certainly nerd, where do I start ? !

-Tora Tora Tora, and almost every film made about WWII, Harvard soundtrack.

'Firefox' - the best reason for buying a gun ( and seeking out the makers ) I've ever seen,

Top Gun - well, you know the rest...

Any programme on Sky. On what used to be the Discovery,Wings channel; if you don't spot a howler within 10 seconds you've probably quite justfiably nodded off or indeed shot yourself - my favourite was the one about the Hunter, mentioning a Rolls Royce engine, pronounced " nee nee " ( Nene...)

[treadigraph]

Tora Tora Tora, and almost every film made about WWII, Harvard soundtrack

A fair proportion of the aircraft in Tora Tora Tora were Harvards! Or BT-13s... :)


Usually if there is a helicopter, then it sounds like a Bell 47. If it is a Bell 47, then it sounds like a Jet Ranger.

Saw "Gold" the other day; some great flying by Nick Turvey in a PA-28, but I was slightly amused by the scene signifiying the villain's arrival in New York from Johannesburg, which showed a short-bodied 727 climbing out of La Guardia (presumably) above a Manhattan skyline. Nice nostalgic shot though...

Slightly off topic: what is the light aircraft used to drop James Bond on to Blofeld's oil rig in "Goldfinger"? It might be something common, but I can't quite make it out; looks a bit like a Windecker Eagle, though it is a retractable.

Edit: I've just looked up the Windecker Eagle on Google - I had always thought it had fixed gear, but it does retract. Therefore I think Bond does jump out of one. One lives and learns.

Also, why is the Sea Bee in "The Man With The Golden Gun" missing its left hand float when Bond arrives at Scaramanger's island?

[Agaricus bisporus]

Howlers are fundamental cock-ups like the Hurricane that explodes before it hits the fuel bowser in the B of B, space ships banking in turns and making jet engine sounds in just about every sci-fi movie ever. Space ships apparently firing guns fer Chrisakes, or unguided missiles as if it were the 1950s. Harrison Ford's revolver apparently ejecting cartridge cases that clink on the ground an impossibly short splitsecond after the shot. Air crashes that take 5 minutes and twenty seperate explosions from places where there is no fuel. Movie-style boiling red flame and black smoke napthalene explosions wherever they're seen. Nuclear blasts that make a rumbling grumbling noise with the flash from 20 miles away. Turbine helos making a Stuka like crescendo howl as they spiral down with an "engine failure", and smoke coming from the skids.

1950s registration! I'll remember that one!

[Double Zero]

Yes, I knew a lot of the aircraft in Tora Tora Tora were Harvards, modified or not - I obviously didn't describe it well enough.

Another god-awful film is 'The Right Stuff' ; I reckon 'Thunderbirds' is much more informative !

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

100 years ago, when I was a kid, there was a weekly TV prog called Interpol Calling. That was great - Viscount taking off, Connie in flight and a Dak landing, complete with turbo-engine sound!! Not just once, but almost every episode had similar cock-ups.

[Old Photo.Fanatic]

I can't recall the title of the film but its a scene where Jack Hawkins (If memory is correct) standing by a window.
Screaming sound of a high speed pass by a jet aircraft (Blue note?), he looks out of the window to see.........
A DC-3 slowly lumbering past in the distance!!!!
One of the best fluffs I can remember.

Loads of War films where 1 or 2 aircraft are totally "Clean" then produce enough distruction which a whole squadron of fully racked up aircraft would have been hard pushed to produce a fraction of the "Results"

My wife has given up telling me off for my screaming insults at the producers of some of the really glaring cock ups seen in tv/films etc.

What gets me going most of all is the stupid obvious mistakes in News Reports etc. which show that no real research was done prior to Broadcasting, no excuse for it in anyway.

OPF

[Double Zero]

I think the classic 'Airplane !' spoof summed it up by having a DC3 soundtrack with a 707 -on screen; deliberately !

[TRC]

There's an entire website devoted to this,

The site you mention is probably this one (http://www.nitpickers.com/). The lengths that some of the posters go to in revealing some error are really quite pathetic.

The problem with aircraft in films, particularly period films is obviously the availability of the right type and mark - take 1940 BB Spitfires for example. Add to this the director's own idea of what either he wants them to sound like, or what the viewing public think they should sound like.

Don't forget Hollywood's motto: "Never let reality get in the way"

[kms901]

A classic today during "The Gift Horse", a classic British war movie. The ship is attacked by twin engined aircraft (Blenheims), which suddenly become Stukas as they start dive bombing !

[Shackman]

Or the 'docudrama' on the sinking of the Lancastrian with the in cockpit scenes in a Liberator - which Mk 3 Shackleton did they use (but to the uninitiated it did look quite good)?

[AARON O'DICKYDIDO]

;)

...High Flight and made in the 50's ...

I appeared in that film as an extra. It was partly made at Cranwell about 1956.

[VX275]

G-ANFM has had quite a film career as she also played Thunderbird 6

[PLovett]

One of many aviation howlers that I recall is in the film on the hostage rescue at Entebbe. There were several films produced and I can't remember the actual title despite a search of IMDb but it starred Elizabeth Taylor and Kirk Douglas as parents of a hostage.

Anyway, the film shows the rescue aircraft as being C-130s which is all and good but when its time to start engines and depart the film shows a lovely shot of a radial piston start, complete with starter motor sounds, turning blades and clouds of smoke when the engine fires. :rolleyes:

An almost generic howler is that any cockpit shot of an airliner in flight will show at least one if not both pilots with hands on controls, even in cruise. :ugh:

[Phileas Fogg]

The end of Die Hard II ... he ignites a snow covered trail of cold Jet A1 with the mere flick of a cigarette lighter ..... I've ignited Jet A1 before now with a flaming torch and it took a few minutes and a lot of persuasion to ignite it!

[Tcraft41]

Tora Tora One scene has a Zero being hit by AA fire. You can see the fuselage break in half, balsa wood plainly visible, but the killer is when one or two radio control servos fall out. Kraft brand servos

Loren

[Dan Winterland]

In the film of the Battle of Britain, the aircraft which crashed into the sea were models which were released from helicopters as underslung loads. One of the He111s is seen crashing into the sea with the long suspension wire trailing behind it. This is because the model became unstable and the helicopter pilot emergency released it.

Now the film producers were faced with a problem in that they didn't want to build a new model, so they included a scene where some control cables get shot through to attempt to explain the trailing wire!

[Whispering Giant]

another clanger for you - the original 'Indiana Jones' film shows Indiana flying to Nepal in a AN2. Which is funny as the AN2 was not designed untill 1947 and the film is supposed to be set in the middle of the second world war !!.

[ShyTorque]

Can't recall the name of the film but I think John Wayne was in it.

An American WW2 fighter bomber was en route to combat over the Pacific. As the two crew were having a conversation whilst flying along in cloud, the distinct shadow of a man and a sweeping brush went slowly past the cockpit.

[RegDep]

A thread-drift of sorts, but what really gets me is that in most major countries where English is not widely spoken (Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc) the movies in theaters and in TV are dubbed.

My favourite :E scene is said John Wayne in said WW2 fighter bomber cockpit speaking Japanese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, etc.) :ugh:

[FantomZorbin]

Has anyone noticed the number of times an aircraft is shown with the ident. letters/numbers/registration back to front (especially in WW2 documentaries!)

[jindabyne]

Much use of PR Spitfires in Reach for the Sky. Still a great film though!

[bigal1941]

If you the viewer notices these "things" the prog cant be that good and holding your attention. Though I did notice yesterday the interchangeability of a Lancaster and a Halifax on a bombing raid on Essen, and the day before there was one of those wartime classic interviews with the eager reporter, testorone pouring out of every pore, interviewing some "jolly godd chaps" immediately after their return from Berlin, with the A/C in the background, a very early version of an Anson. How many rfueling stops did that require? Alan

[Feathers McGraw]

I re-watched The Hunt for Red October the other day. An F-14 trying to land on with some sort of technical problem crashes, but the aircraft that actually hits the round down and then rolls across the deck ablaze is a Grumman Panther or Cougar, I didn't quite manage to see enough of the wing planform to decide which it was.

I suppose that when the film was made the genuine crash footage of various F-14s around carriers was not available as these crashes had not actually happened yet.

[Lightning Mate]

How about aeroplanes out of control in a dive with the engine and prop rpm increasing to a crescendo, and the props are constant speed units!

Jets make exactly the same sounds as well!!!

[VX275]

Ever noticed that that all aircraft that crash in films have the Stuka siren fitted and nearly all helicopters sound like Bell 47s.
Likewise an awfull lot of FW 190 get shot down during the Battle of Britain and airliners taking-off retract their undercarriage just like a B52 - The curse of stock footage. :ugh:

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

That dreadful mix of Spits in the Alec Guiness ''Malta story'' (good film though). Griffon's, bubble canopies etc

[Dr Jekyll]

In Memphis Belle the B17s are escorted by some P51s which have to turn back early because of fuel.

The whole point of the P51 was that it could escort bombers all the way to the target. The whole point of Memphis Belle was that it managed to complete a tour without P51s, usually relying on Spitfires or P47s.

There were plenty of Spitfires available for the film, but apparently the film company decided 'the movie going public associates the Spitfire with the Battle of Britain'.

[Georgeablelovehowindia]

I do wish the BBC News would stop dubbing that washing machine on spin-cycle noise every time there's an interior shot from a helicopter.

:*

[chevvron]

I can remember numerous films and series on TV showing the 'hero' taking off in something like a Comet, then you saw (say) a Viscount cruising along followed by Connie or Stratocruiser landing! The director, continuity or editing people obviously assumed the general public wouldn't notice and simply used 'stock' shots for the three phases of flight!

[sandiego89]

Not a "mistake" as per the intent of this thread, but the AV8B Harrier scene in True Lies has to rate near the top of the absurd scale. Our hero Arnold hovers around the crane with his daughter hanging onto the shot out wind scren frame- and they talk and hear each other! and she does not get sucked into the intake. He also backs it into a glass window, etc etc,

Also the OA-6 Loach that can't shake the chasing UH-1 HUEY in the Dustin Hoffman movie "Outbreak"

[johngreen]

Borderline aviation related and anyway somewhat more subtle than most of the above but posted for the benefit of those that enjoy such observations; very many movies that wish to set the scene in a jungle – particularly a threatening one - will be dubbed with the calls of the Kookaburra, a bird which actually lives only in Australia and PNG.

jg

[radar101]

There were more bloopers in High Flight. My father was an RAF Fireman at Nicosia when they filmed the final crash scene (he and his mates got a fiver each as extras!)

As they come in to land "somewhere in West Germany" you see the fire tender and blood wagon scream down the runway, passing the Nicosia Tower with a very mediterranean landscape, just before the obvious model aircraft scrapes along the runway wheels up.

Interestingly one of the firemen was so enthusiatic in heaving the dummy pilot out of the burning cockpit that he broke or otherwise damaged his arm. He can be seen nursing it in the subsequent dash to the ambulance!!

[dad remustered to supply when the firemen became part of the RAF Regiment!!]

[stepwilk]

Kiddies, it's called drama. Trust me, I used to write films and have three Academy Award nominations to show for it. (No you won't find them listed under my name if you do a search; look for "Dick Young," the producer of the short documentaries I wrote.)

400 years ago, the snarkers would have been saying, "There was no arras in that room in Dunsinore Castle, it was actually two rooms to the west. And did you see that Birnam Wood scene? There were actually people wearing the trees!"

Give moviemakers a break. They have budgets, and they don't give a scheiss about anoraks who know Malcolm hoods were introduced in September, not October...

This thread is an exercise in people demonstrating how smart they are. Go home.

[TRC]

Kiddies, it's called drama


Yes, and this is an aviation forum. A lot of people in this business get wound up about inaccuracies involving aircraft in films - a lot of the time these details are un-avoidable due to lack of appropriate aircraft and some are due to budget constraints or laziness by the production. I realise that.

What really annoys me about Hollywood is their habit of changing history - not whether Robin Hood was American, but REAL history. I worked with an American who visited some WWII POW cemetaries in Thailand, and he told me that he was astonished that there were no Americans buried there. We had to tell him why. He'd only seen the films.

This thread is an exercise in people demonstrating how smart they are. Go home

Your post is an exercise in someone demonstrating how stupid they think the general public are. We're staying.

Maybe we should make a list of so-called 'factual' films that have bent or even mutilated the facts of actual historical events.

I'll start the ball rolling with the tale of the US Navy capturing an Enigma machine from a U boat. How many people think that's what really happened?

Oh, and stepwilk, would you like one of us to retrieve your teddy - you threw it so hard out of your pram you might not find it.

[Dan Winterland]

It's called 'attention to detail' and it can make the difference between credibility and ridicule. The average audience are demanding more accuracy and it's ignored at the film producer's peril.

I do a bit of consultancy work for authors who want to get the aviation bits of their books correct. There's a lot of demand for that sort of work and it's becoming more important in the information age where a quick google can show up massive errors.

[treadigraph]

It's actually also an exercise in a bit of fun and communication with fellow aeronautically-minded individuals...

[Lightning Mate]

I'm wondering what the re-make of The Dambusters will throw up!

(..yes, I know, the dog has already been thrashed on Prune).

[JEM60]

Can't wait for the new 'Dambusters' Treadi. Quite!!!

[jindabyne]

Re Stepwilk

"Dick Young"

Perhaps more appropriately known as Young Dick?

[Agaricus bisporus]

I suppose he has a point. Every night on TV you can see three dozen programmes where people take twenty gigantic blows to the head and remain standing, fighting, talking and apparently unharmed when just one such blow would have put them in a coma with massive brain damage, a shattered jaw and skull or more likely death, (not to mention the smashed hand that delivered it) yet we don't hear the doctors wailing about it.
After all, "all" that does is tell the youth of the country that the head can take as much beating as a pair of olympically powerful fists can deliver and come to no harm. Nice!

Still, I did yell at that pathetic Panther crash the other night. That really was sloppy.

ps. Aeroplanes that have run out of fuel that explode into fireballs too...

[JEM60]

Out of interest, the pilot in the Panther was only slightly hurt.

[Viscount812]

I love it! I saw the Kings Speech as well and ANFM jumped out straightaway. What made me chuckle though was that on one of the "moviemistake" weblogs, one poster had obviously researched the error thoroughly and proudly revealed that the aircraft used couldn't have been around in the time depicted as it had only been manufactured a few years later in 1941. He completely missed the fact (pointed out earlier in this thread) that the registration series G-ANF* wasn't issued until 1958.

[Proplinerman]

A couple I've posted elsewhere on PPrune before, but worth repeating here, I think.

Firstly, some marvellous multiple errors involving an Aeronaves de Mexico Britannia, from "Jet over the Atlantic" 1959:

YouTube - "Aeronaves de Mexico Bristol Britannia"-1959 (http://tinyurl.com/yapcrvz)

And secondly, from that very famous film "La Dolce Vita" (Federico Fellini, 1960), a superb piece of film making, marred by some horrendous sound track and continuity errors (at Rome airport, involving Alitalia Viscounts, DC6Bs and DC7Cs):

YouTube - "Alitalia Viscount 745 & DC-7C & DC-6B"-1960 (http://tinyurl.com/yzoqg6v)

[mat777]

For a pair of complete and utter low budget howlers, one needs look no further than

a) the episode "Private Plane" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPi1J7W2NUE&feature=related#t=5m8s) of Blackadder Goes Forth where they become pilots, and end up flying something suspiciusly tigher-moth like, presumably dressed up to look like an SE5. The clincher is when they are shot down by the German single seater wich has a fairly obvious canvas cover over the passenger cockpit...

b) The second equally low-rent production would be that crime against aviation culture known as Biggles Adventures in Time (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu9_iJ5Tekg&feature=related#t=62), featuring a distincly 1930s biplane in 1917, and a world war one pilot who can fly a helicopter...

[treadigraph]

The Blackadder biplanes are Personal Plane Services' Stampes which can rapidly be converted into SE-5s at the drop of a spanner, and have also appeared in Aces High (for which they were originally modified) and High Road to China (which has just dropped through my letterbox today in DVD form!). And in a Solvite commercial from the 1970s if I recall aright...

The 1930s Biggles biplane is the late John Jordan's Stearman G-AROY! Remember it at Biggin or somewhere in that scheme around the time of filming.

[Drakestream]

In 'Catch Me If You Can' Leonardo Di Caprio's character points out 'RWY 44 at LaGuardia', of course this is impossible!

Great film though.

[Kitbag]

Just a bit of fun, but I only looked at this thread this morning and I couldn't help being disturbed by Treadigraphs post:

Slightly off topic: what is the light aircraft used to drop James Bond on to Blofeld's oil rig in "Goldfinger"? It might be something common, but I can't quite make it out; looks a bit like a Windecker Eagle, though it is a retractable.Of course everybody knows that the Blofeld character didn't appear until the fifth film 'You Only Live Twice' of 1967, however I guess the scene referred to is actually in 'Diamonds Are Forever' the seventh film in the series. The Windecker Eagle did not get certificated until 1969 btw.:ugh:

hat, coat, gone :p

[L'aviateur]

OT: Then you also have the whole firearms fiasco, which really is a hollywood thing. The silencer on handguns, well yes there is, but would probably still be heard two blocks away! The need to recock a gun on weapons which automatically recock, which would then cause the bullet in the chamber to fall out... Or the unlimited ammunition. I thought an automatic weapon had about 4 seconds of fire power before you had to reload? Or the bulletproof vests which would badly wind you if not worse when a handgun is fired, nevermind more powerful firearms probably destroying the vest and you!

Hollywood creates a world to escape the real world.

[treadigraph]

Kitbag you are quite right, good job I'm not in the film business, eh?

I probably had Pussy Galore on my mind...

[sisemen]

Anybody heard any whispers about the new Dambuster film? It all seems to have gone horribly quiet.

[treadigraph]

I heard somewhere online a while back that it has been postponed but not cancelled. Isn't Jackson doing "The Hobbit" at the moment?

[DHfan]

Any film involving aircraft being shot at. Wherever the bullets hit, engine failure follows. One example, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - elderly biplane, rudder shot to bits, engine starts misfiring.

[Airclues]

In the film 'My Best Friends Wedding', Julia Roberts flies from New York to Chicago. She arrives at the United Terminal at Chicago. However, the departure from 'New York' is actually the International Terminal at Chicago (gate M11).

Dave

[mat777]

thats assumijng they hit it DHFan... I've just been watching said Biggles Movie again (and really wishing I hadnt bothered), there is a scene where the Stearman is chasing what looks like a Tiger Moth, all in 1917, and the Boche gets within about 30 feet of the Brits tailplane, firing at them whilst the observer in the moth returns fire with a lewis gun. If they cant hit each other at that range then they dont deserve to fly!!!

[scr1]

on the subject of a/c in films

ex highland airways J31 G-UIST had its wings cut off and left by road yesterday for pinewood film studios.

any idea what it is going to star in???

[dakkg651]

If you lot are so pedantic about accuracy, how come no one has complained about all those merlin powered 'Heinkels' and 'Me 109s' in the
B of B. The film should never have been made if they couldn't get proper German built aircraft in my opinion. And as for the Spitfires, my investigations show that the registration of the aircraft flown by Michael Caine had in fact been struck off charge two months before the time period depicted in the film after having been damaged during a convoy patrol! Howlers such as this should never be allowed.:=

At least some earlier British films were well researched and historically accurate. For example, 'The Sound Barrier' taught those uncouth yanks that it was us Brits that discovered the method of recovering from a sonic dive...... Aeroelasticity!:ok:

Thank goodness film producers have now got CGI to produce 100% accurate aircraft. No longer will we have to put up with seeing incorrect aircraft with outragous registrations on our cinema or television screens.:ugh:

[crisso]

In 'Blackadder goes Forth - Private Plane' - I always assumed the aerial sequence footage had simply just been lifted from 'Aces High'? This was re-inforced by a scene where Blackadder and Baldrick chatting in mid-flight yet, the SE5's Guns are firing! (I'm happy to be corrected though...)

[chevvron]

dakkg651: I'd personally far rather see REAL aircraft in films as I find computer simulations are absolute RUBBISH; witness the 'new' Andrex bogroll commercials with their ridiculous simulations of lovable lab puppies.
Anyway what about dakkg661 arriving at Farnborough in the mid '80s and immediately a sharp eyed spotter pointing out the real '661 had been written off in 1945.

[dakkg651]

chevvron

I was actually being a tad sarcastic about CGI.

Nothing can replace a real aeroplane as was proved by that dire film 'Fly Boys'.

I will however, reserve final judgment until we see Mr Jackson's remake of The Dambusters.

Sorry to hear about KG661.

KG651, on the other hand, is alive and well and sitting about 30 yards from this keyboard.;)

[chevvron]

I don't know how come '661 was incorrectly numbered or how long the RAF/MOD operated it as '661, but I know that shortly after arriving at Farnborough, it was pulled out of the hangar one day with ZA947 painted on it, and it survives in service today with BBMF.

[Cunliffe]

Deliberate mistake!
Watching old film on telly last year where the villain told the policeman (John Mills?) that he had flown Meteors in the RAF in 1943.
I immediately piped up "But they didn't enter service until 1944" to which my wife replied "Well you've got it wrong this time, they wouldn't make such a silly mistake in a film."
How satisfying at the end of the film when the policeman said "I knew he was a fraud, there were no meteors in 1943."
Just call me Mr Smug.
PS What was that film?

[Blacksheep]

I probably had Pussy Galore on my mind...Ah, Pussy Galore! Her Flying Circus was located at one of my old work places - 311 Hangar at Northolt. James Bond didn't really blow it up.

My favourite howler was in Thunderball where Mr. Bond inspects the ditched Vulcan standing on its undercarriage on the seabed after the villainous Beagle has murdered his crew and alighted on water. Come to think of it, being able to lower the undercarriage after alighting on water was quite an achievement.

Bond somehow manages to swim into the cabin through the open canopy, and despite being clad in diving gear, down between the pilots' seats. From the cabin he then goes through a hatch into the empty bomb bay, completely avoiding the nosewheel bay and fuel tanks 1 and 2 on the way. I suppose it must have been the ultra top-secret submersible B.Mk3S prototype, cancelled by the Labour government. :}

[st patrick]

Dont forget GOODFELLAs where it shows New York Idlewild airport supposedly in the late `60s with a Swissair 747 taxiing in the background!

[Tankertrashnav]

How about people having quiet conversations in an unpressurised prop driven aircraft with a subdued hum going on in the background? Richard Burton unravelling the plot of Where Eagles Dare in a very quiet J52 springs to mind.

btw May we train buffs pinch this idea for a similar railway thread? Can't count the number of times the train leaves the station with one loco at the front, is seen en route with another, and arrives at the destination with a third. Use of stock footage?

[Dan Winterland]

Leonardo de Caprio exiting a B707 through the toilet in 'Catch Me If You Can'.




But that's not to say it didn't happen in real life! In his autobiography, Frank Abignale mentioned he flew back to the US in a VC10. The VC10 has a door between the aft toilets which leads into the tail section and what we referred to as the 'boiler room' where the hydraullic resevoirs were. If you are thin enough, you can squeeze down into the rear cargo hold and open the door from the inside. It's quite a drop to the ground, but feasible.

[tail wheel]

Viscount812 (Post #46). I haven't see "The King's Speech" so don't know what aircraft you were referring to.

I believe the first "Royal Flight" aircraft in 1934 was DH84 Dragon G-ACGG (Ser No 6025), which became VH-AAC, then RAAF A34-10 from 1941, became VH-AAC again and spent many years in Papua New Guinea.

I have a photo of G-ACGG with the Duke of Windsor (Edward VIII) at the controls. The polished wheel spats apprear to be embossed with Crowns!

[Genghis the Engineer]

I think that we need to perhaps differentiate between a true howler and a bit of artistic licence.

Using the right aircraft type, but a slightly later registration - frankly that is just artistic licence. Just like an actor not looking exactly like Winston Churchill or Guy Gibson - a film is not reality, it's a representation of reality.

Personally I get far more worked up over anything based on reality which a fillm plays loose with, without any really good reason. An F-14 does have a problem with engine failure induced spin, but some of th RT in that film really would not be used within a US military environment - and if anything the punchier and more accurate US Navy RT would have been more impressive, not less. You aren't going to hold inverted formation in a heavy weapons platform aeroplane either - but that was a plot device, and fair enough.


Where multiple characters get merged, an aeroplane does something it just couldn't - for no other reason than a little bit of production convenience. That I'll get upset about. Hercs don't have ejection seats, light aircraft do not immediately go into a spiral dive when the engine coughs, spacecraft don't need to bank to turn, CERN really really don't have a slush hydrogen powered hypersonic business jet.

G

[Fareastdriver]

Thunderball where Mr. Bond inspects the ditched Vulcan

I think you will find that the cockpit in the scenes was taken in a Valiant; XD814. That had the cockpit removed and transported to Pinewood studios in late 1965.

I know that because I held the aircraft's inventory.

[sisemen]

T0dFzy0yD7c

Looks pretty much like a Vulcan cockpit to me. But what would I know I haven't got too many hours on them. :}

[Fareastdriver]

It looks very Vulcany, doesnt it? They may have hacked it around a bit to suit because there is no record of the cockpit surviving.

[brewerybod]

The owner of Vulcan B.2 nose XL388 when it was with the former Blyth Valley Aviation Collection at Walpole in Suffolk,told me that it had been used in the James Bond film 'Thunderball' when i visited there in the late nineties.

Graham,
Bentwaters Cold War Museum

[Fareastdriver]

Vulcan XL388 was deliverd to the RAF in June 1962. To be used in 'Goldfinger' it's cockpit would have to have been filled with water when it was three years old. After all that it would have ben eventualkly flown to Honington in April 1982 so the RAF Regiment could set fire to it. It could well have done the flyimg bit in the film.
I got the year wrong. It was in late 1964 that I can remember XD 814 sitting there, minus a cockpit. That was on a civilian truck; destination Pinewood studios. Thunderball was made in 1965.

[sisemen]

The aircraft used for flying sequences in Thunderball was a B1A filmed at Waddington.

The Waddington wing didn't get B2s until later.

[johnfairr]

The actual underwater sequence of the Vulcan in Thunderball was filmed at a place called South Ocean Beach in the Bahamas. They built a 1/2 or 1/3 size mock up, which was still there when I dived on it in 1982. The ocean depth goes from 60' to 6000' in a little over 800 yards and the diving is fantastic.

Got my PADI, or whatever it was in those days, whilst on holiday - great golf course attached to the hotel as well. All in all a superb holiday!

[exgroundcrew]

I can confirm Fareastdrivers recollection of Valiant XD814 being used for the James Bond film. I was on 90 Squadron right to the bitter end and spent days removing the radar and radio kit and then dismantling all the Valiants. We took off the cockpit and the bomb doors for the film company and were originally invited to go with them to the Bahamas and rig up the instruments to simulate various readings.
Eventually The RAF decided that only commissioned officers could go but the film company then said it would get their own people to rig the instrument panel so in the end no RAF staff went.
So definitely some of the shots were from the Valiant even if a Tin Triangle was used for others.

[Fareastdriver]

exgrouncrew

Thank you very much. The number of times I haver been shot down over that.

[RedhillPhil]

It's not just aeroplane howlers that filmers are good at. I cringe every time I see a film where the goodie/baddie uncouples a train thats in motion and watches as the two portions slowly separate. Then there was a dreadfull seventies clunker about a train carrying a bucket of sunshine being hijacked through Europe. Yeah, as if.

[Goldryder]

Being an avid watcher of Air Accident Investigation and other documentaries of that ilk, the one that always makes me cringe (and not due to the subject, which is absolutely horrific)....the one that covered the loss of JAL123.

The programme is very well made & the recreation of the last 30 minutes of the 747 is extremely realistic.....but...after the plane has gone down and the USAF are overflying in a C130 and told to return to base...the sound effects man got the wrong button, cos it sounds more like a Cessna 172....but its easy to make a mistake and it doesn't really impact the story...it just bugs that since they made such a superb job of the rest of the film, they let a simple sound effect error like that happen :ugh:

The best, or at least one of the best, howlers to me was the Poldark oil tanker...and another was the Pirates of the Caribbean helicopter (the same helicopter appeared in Master & Commander too, amongst other sailing ship films & telly series).....a case of always look where the sun is when filming cos you get some really dodgy shadows sometimes

[Gulfstreamaviator]

Sitting in the back of a DC3, with standard pax door, removed.

Smoking, smoke rises gently directly upwards, no turbulent flow.
Holding a standard conversation, NO engine or wind noise.

Costs nothing to turn the wind machine on, and almost nothing a noise track.

glf

[Tarq57]

All the "air accident investigation" (and similar) documentaries are full of howlers, and increasingly so.
Not only that but the style of rendition (with endless repeating scary bits, passengers screaming, and no continuity in an accident sequence) gets on my goat.
I wouldn't mind learning something from one of these without having to sit through the vomitous replays of the (melo)dramatic bits.

Last but not least: Not all flight crews look like dodgy used-car salesmen or pimps. A physical characteristic that must be common in C-grade actors.

[Proplinerman]

Saw another one the other night, in a Sky Yesterday doco.

A person had to be flown from Brazil to Germany (time was the late 1960s). Cue an Air France Caravelle coming to a halt and opening its front passenger door. A bit odd, I thought, but perhaps the character was flown from Brazil to Paris, then on to Germany. But no, next footage is of the character deplaning from what is very clearly a Lufthansa 707-just the aircraft I would have expected to see in the circumstances. Sheer carelessness/laziness.

[Wanderin_dave]

Flicked on the TV the other night and caught an old episode of 'Airwolf'.

Pretty impresive to see the Bell 222 cruising on up to FL870! :eek:

[Cat.S]

The 'Longest Day' in the inside the Horsa shot approaching Pagasus Bridge, there is no bulkhead between cockpit and troops. Pity really, as they used the original plans to build the Horsas they used for external shots. I believe they tried to get the CAA to allow them to fly these, but were turned down as the CAA decided the design was inherently dangerous!

[VX275]

If they used original plans for the Horsa the CAA probably had kittens when they saw that the material called for in the construction was Commercial Grade Plywood ie inferior quality to Marine grade let alone aircraft grade plywood. :\

[happybiker]

Wasn't the Longest Day released in 1962? That would be 10 years before the CAA was born in 1972!

[Viscount812]

Can someone remind me of the fairly recent film I saw when a family left the US and flew across the Atlantic on a Ryanair 737-200? Now I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but..........

[sisemen]

No, that's correct. It would be the Dublin (Newark) to London (Thessalonika) scheduled service. :}

[Viscount812]

Dat's the one! :bored:

[Volume]

Leonardo de Caprio exiting a B707 through the toilet in 'Catch Me If You Can'. As far as I understand that scene, it is a CV-990 Leonardo is exiting through the toilet. The thrust reversers of the GE rear fan engines are so remarkable. They probably filmed that one in Mojave, with the 990 used by NASA for Space Shuttle landing gear testing, it probably had the big hole in the floor they needed... However, once he has left the aircraft, it becomes a 707 again. They were probably not able to find a 990 which could be taxied or no 990 at an airport in operation.

[Jeff Glasser]

I just love this thread as I'm as guilty as the next nitpicker for shouting at the t.v. screen about film/t.v. makers who can't be bothered to try and get stuff right.
I might be regarded as even sadder being the owner and restorer of a 1942 'jeep'.
So many films, American and British will use the French built Hotchkis version when there are so many sad git enthusiasts like myself who would die to get their 'correct for the film' vehicle shown in a film. My wife threatened to stab me the next time I bring her attention to the fact that it's obviously a late 1960's jeep being driven by our hero as can be seen by the fact that it has the wrong wheels/hubs etc. I could go on, but I think I hear her coming up the stairs!!
p.s. what about Me 108's for 109's....

Jeff

[VX275]

Not an aviation mistake in a film, but I've just watched a TV motoring program that had a phone-in quiz at the end.
Question, which is a famous bomber aircraft,
a/ Manchester,
b/ Lancaster,
c/ Doncaster.
Well as I'm a plane nut and not a car nut I recognise TWO Avro bombers and an experimental De havilland transport from that list.