German training AC featured in the movie The Great Escape.

[pall]

Does anyone know the name of the German Training Aircraft featured in the movie The Great Escape? It looks like it has a Gypsy Major engine or some kind of inverted in line 4 cylinder. It starts with a crank handle through the side cowling.

[kingRB]

Bucker Bu 181 'Bestmann'

[Wally Mk2]

108 (TAIFUN)

Wmk2:)

[kookabat]

Someone else was watching the Midday Movie, then!

[Trojan1981]

Someone else was watching the Midday Movie, then!
Me three:ok:

[VH-XXX]

I was wondering that same thing myself today when watching the mid day movie! I wondered why they left the Harvard looking type aircraft and took the little gypsy-like one instead.

[drunkensailor]

Someone else was watching the Midday Movie, then!
And no-one told me this was on? :sad: Shame on you.

[pall]

Thanks all.



Listed as a trainer provided for the Luftwaffe. Very intere4sting AC. Great movie also. Based on a large measure of truth apparently. The main character played by McQueen was actually an amalgum of a few individuals.

[Wally Mk2]

'KRB' yr quite right there it does appear to be the Bu181 & not the Bf108 that I thought it was. A quick look at the Vid I have of that great movie shows a fixed gear plane as per yr making:ok:


Wmk2

[bluesky300]

me too...great movie.

[kingRB]

no worries wal :ok:

XXX - it probably was actually a Harvard except in German livery - I read once somewhere that all the aircraft that featured in the movie were American, except for the Bucker.

[Pinky the pilot]

Based on a large measure of truth apparently.

Have a read of the book The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill which was published back in the late 1950s and you'll find out just how much crap the movie actually was!

Entertaining yes, but still crap! About the only true part was that originally there were indeed three tunnels but only one was used.

[lowerlobe]

From memory there was a doco where a team went to the original camp site and used an excavator to look for the tunnels.

The soil if you could call it that was very sandy and cave ins were a very distinct possibility even to the crew using the digger.

In the end they did find one of the tunnels or what was left of it with the original bracing used by the prisoners.

Pinky...most movies adapted from a book have limitations because of the medium they use not to mention a time frame as well...but it was a bloody good film just the same.

I understand there must have been a general feeling of boredom and helplessness from being a prisoner but it would have taken a major set of cojones to do what they did....

[Keg]

About the only true part was that originally there were indeed three tunnels but only one was used.....


....and sadly many of the escapees were executed by the Gestapo. I seem to recall that the book indicates that the Luftwaffe was quite distressed at this and went to some lengths to keep many of the captured prisoners away from the Gestapo after they found out about the earlier executions.

[Lucky Six]

This is a very good and factual web site on Stalag Luft III and the Great Escape. Good holiday reading.

The Great Escape, March 1944: Rob Davis (http://www.elsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/gt_esc/)

Safe Flying

[kingRB]

This is a very good and factual web site on Stalag Luft III and the Great Escape. Good holiday reading.

thanks for that - what a fantastic read!

[Wally Mk2]

Yes tnxs too for the link to that amazing read:ok:

Can't imagine for one second what it would have been like under those appaling conditions:sad:

Some countries are no doubt ashamed of their past during WW2.

Wmk2

[Teal]

Another good 'escape' read can be found in Bob Hoover's Forever Flying. Late in the war he escaped from Stalag Luft I with a fellow American airman and a Canadian airman. The climax of his escape was his stealing of a Focke-Wulf FW-190 from a German airstrip, and flying it across to the Allied lines whilst attempting to avoid getting shot down by American fighters.

Contents of the book here (http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/B001GVJC6K/ref=sib_dp_pop_toc?ie=UTF8&p=S00I#reader-link)

[Katoom]

There's a nice article on the Bf108 in the November issue of Flypast

Also a clip YouTube - Bf 108 Taifun Pair (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=EFb2Cm1-Uiw)