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 !!.

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.

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:

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

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

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

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.

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!!!

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:

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

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'.

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.

:*

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!

True Lies
 

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"

Other misplaced flying things...
 

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

High Flight
 

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!!]

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.

Stepwilk
 

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.

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.

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.

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