Aircraft mistakes in films

[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

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

[mat777]

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

a) the episode "Private Plane" 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, 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.

hat, coat, gone

[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!

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.