ROC -
you folks got involved in Kuwait, Vietnam, Korea etc.- which of your shores were affected then?
I'm not trying to offend anyone and my point at the start was that: Yes- Hollywood do do it for American audiences and Yes - they do tinker with the facts to try to make it look good for those audiences. The problem is, that that tinkering with the facts (generally) spoils the film for aviators (e.g. the rear ramp in the 747) and people with a reasonable grasp of history (and that does include me). This does nothing to make America or Americans look good beyond their own country.
I have nothing against Americans (my next door neighbour is one and is a very nice chap and a friend!) but the clowns in Hollywood seem to want to give out the impression that you are all gun mad, ultra-patriotic psychos - which is complete cr*p of course. Like us you have your share of nutters (well, in fact yuo seem to have more than your fair share - influenced by TV/Movie violence?????) but Hollywood seem to wish to convey the impresion that this is the norm.
If I gave the impression that I am not grateful for american participation in WWII then I am sorry - that was not my intention. I was just saying that the very low key american presence at the start of the war does at least save us from Hollywood rewriting history to give the impression that Alec Baldwin or Kurt Russell won the battle of Britain on his own (with the aid of one old biplane and a swiss army knife - oops, that's the A-team).
I hope this clears up what I was getting at and that we can now return to the main job of taking the p*ss out of awful movies.
PS RRAAMJET - at 36 I don't qualify as a member of Britain's yoof kuwlter but have been around the world enough in my aeroplanes (Oz to Hawaii, North Pole to southern Africa, Highlands to Hong Kong) and done enough interesting, unusual and sometimes dangerous work to qualify as an experienced aviator. At least, I think so!
[This message has been edited by moggie (edited 22 February 2001).]