Aviation Movies

[Wander00]

There is an obscure channel on Freesat up near Movies for Men (don't get over excited chaps, mainly war and cowboy films) called Moving Pictures. Usually has old b&w feature movies but frequent aviation stuff, just this week a wartime Ministry of Information film about the ATA.. Fascinating stuff.

[Voutezac]

Due presumably to many a misunderstanding, Movies for Men is now Sony Movies Action on Freesat channel 305. Talking Pictures TV is on 306, and does have some very interesting films. On 307 is Retro TV, which has apparently cornered the market in very old, bad films shown in the worst print available.

[treadigraph]

Thanks for that Voutezac, I was looking for Movies for Men on my tv guide and wondered where the channel had gone!

[chevvron]

Freeview 40 is presently showing Reunion at Fairborough (part filmed at Fairoaks) at least once a week and Freeview 8 (London area) does likewise with Cone of Silence part filmed at Filton and starring an Avro Ashton.

[rolling20]

The Spitfire display by Alex Henshaw is quite remarkable.

[Voutezac]

And of course there is Forces TV on Freesat 165. It has some current military news and sport, some tech stuff, and Dogfights - CGI air battles from various eras. Combined with this you have some of the worst British sitcoms from the 70s and 80s.Shelley anyone? Keep it in the family? Father dear father?

[Voutezac]

Almost forgot - both Forces Tv and Talking Pictures TV show Get Some In, the hilarious (!) show about National Service in the RAF. So relevant!

[India Four Two]

The Spitfire display by Alex Henshaw is quite remarkable.

Which movie is that in? I've always wanted to see him flying a Spitfire. His descriptions of his displays are quite frightening!

[dixi188]

TV not movies, but, just seen tonight's World on Fire (BBC) and there was a shot of three Spitfires taking off all with "FY" on the side. I thought each aircraft had it's own code, unlike the USAF with codes for each base.

[chevvron]

Originally Posted by dixi188

TV not movies, but, just seen tonight's World on Fire (BBC) and there was a shot of three Spitfires taking off all with "FY" on the side. I thought each aircraft had it's own code, unlike the USAF with codes for each base.

FY would have been the squadron code, there was normally (but not always) another letter for each individual aircraft.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by dixi188

TV not movies, but, just seen tonight's World on Fire (BBC) and there was a shot of three Spitfires taking off all with "FY" on the side. I thought each aircraft had it's own code, unlike the USAF with codes for each base.

Apart from the code being non-standard, the reason all three aircraft wore the same one is that it was the same aircraft x 3, thanks to some special effects trickery.

[teeteringhead]

The codes could cause confusion. I recall seeing a picture of some 72 Sqn Spitfires captioned "Fleet Air Arm Spitfires".....

...... Squadron bigraph was RN!

[dixi188]

Originally Posted by DaveReidUK

Apart from the code being non-standard, the reason all three aircraft wore the same one is that it was the same aircraft x 3, thanks to some special effects trickery.

I thought that was the case.
I'm not a great lover of all this CGI and electronic wizardry that all films seem to have these days.
SWMBO wants to see Midway but I'm not sure.

[Gerry Mobbs]

Having done National Service in that era it is so real(to me )

[Wander00]

CGI or not, someone took the trouble to have the undercarriages of the "three" aircraft seemed to sequence at different speeds. Clever that

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by Wander00

CGI or not, someone took the trouble to have the undercarriages of the "three" aircraft seemed to sequence at different speeds. Clever that

Probably more by accident than by design. I suspect it's 3 successive takeoffs by the aircraft in question, each offset a bit laterally and then stitched together. It's fairly common to see the Spit's wheels retracting unevenly.

[PapaDolmio]

Originally Posted by Gerry Mobbs

Having done National Service in that era it is so real(to me )

Recruit Training at Swinderby in 1982 wasn't that far removed from it either!

[Wander00]

And there's me being positive for once!

[chevvron]

Originally Posted by dixi188

I thought that was the case.
I'm not a great lover of all this CGI and electronic wizardry that all films seem to have these days.
SWMBO wants to see Midway but I'm not sure.

In the recent Brad Pitt film 'Allied', there was a scene where he drove onto a grass airfield covered with Lysanders and Lancasters obviously CGId. They were all parked together; pretty stupid as couple of German bombs would have taken the lot out.
I realised where it was when I saw the hangars, my old stamping ground at Halton. They'd CGId in a couple of 'F' type hangars on the south west boundary too.

[rog747]

Talking Pictures TV often runs Cone of Silence, No highway in the sky, Out of the Clouds, Ferry Pilot (1941), London Airport early 1960's, and The Night My Number Came Up.

TCM runs First of the few, The Sound barrier, Angels one five, One of our aircraft is missing and many more of the WW2 ones...

All good sofa fodder with a bag of crisps and a box of chocs on a winters afternoon