Best comedy:- Dr Strangelove with Sellers as the Brit Gp Capt exchange officer (and the US President and indeed the mad scientist) with Slim Pickens (I believe?) as the bonkers B52 commander. Highlights include the US President trying to reason with an intoxicated Russian president about the slight error in launching SAC and the B52 commander's finale after dislodging the nuke.

Gathering of Eagles reminds me,

Anyone know the name of the B47 film? I seem to remember airborne alert off Newfoundland, a fire, AAR sequences etc. Quite a story line really following a B47 wing work up, ops and then deployment to Kadena (?).

... and today's movie trivia is:

Apparently Sellers was to play the B52 captain's part too, but was not happy with his characterisation - not a very nice man, but certainly a perfectionist.

Best:- BoB
Worst:- Top Gun, can't stand the little sh*t TC.

Has anyone mentioned John Wayne? Didn't he win a dog fight or two in the Pacific? Can't remember name of film.

One to stir the heartstrings: the Chipmonk AEF film, staring Paul Young (before he got his record contract!) ;) as John Andrews.
Those immortal lines:
"Jump jump John"!
"Jump jump Sir"!!!!

Why did he not get an Oscar???

The best war film for me was "A matter of Life and Death" with David Niven. You've got to watch it for the bit when he is on the beach and assumes he is dead- fantastic acting!

I used to have all of the Top Gun flying bits merged into one video- I was young then...:=

SMT

Well, if you're going to mention Susannah York......

I give you.....

How about The Bridges at Toko-Ri for one of the best. Some great Korean War, carrier-borne jets (F9F Panther) and Grace Kelly to boot!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...of_Toko-Ri.jpg

There are now two Threads (the other's about hats)
that are now showing saucy pics of women. Is there a conspiracy out there to corrupt us old farts?

Sorry Goudie, but I'm an old fart as well. You have to keep us oldies happy somehow!

Goudie

The Duke flew P40s in The Flying Tigers. This included the famous out take of the chap walking across the sky outside the cockpit.

He also flew Hellcats in The Flying Leathernecks.

He also taught some Russian bint to fly a P80 in Jet Pilot. The pilot who did most of the flying sequences for this was Chuck Yeager.

That has just reminded me of the film The Sound Barrier which featured the prototype Supermarine Swift which was called the Prometheus if I remember correctly.
Pushing forward on the stick to recover from a supersonic dive. Shows that aerolastic distortion does have it's uses then! Yeager really enjoyed this film by all accounts.

Peter Jackon is rumoured to be remaking the "Dambusters" should be excellent, just wonder how they will get around the black pet dog in these politically correct times!

Surprised that no one has mentioned The Right Stuff....or Those Magnifcent Men in their Flying Machines. I haven't seen the film, but Hells Angels is supposed to be good and hows' about Up in the Air with George Formby
watp,iktch

Oh BEagle,

If only........................................................ ..........more like her today eh?

Winco

I quite like this Dambusters remake .. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_NMfBKrdErY .. :ok:

Recently watched Speed and Angels. Documentary of the last class of Tomcat Pilots to go through, some of the air to air camera work is pretty good.

But the worst for me has to be Iron Eagle .. :yuk:

Did anyone sit through Behind Enemy Lines long enough to get to the world's longest, most far-fetched surface-to-air missile sequence. The whole sequence was long enough to see the launch, go away and brew some coffee, come back see the damn thing in flight, go back to the kitchen and bake a jacket potato, come back to the TV and they were still jostling around trying to evade the missile. An irritatingly crap bunch-of-arse.

As for the best, The Battle of Britain is a classic in every way and there's always a time and a place for Top Gun.

In a slightly different category: The Boys From Bahrain. Amazing. More or less started the Sqn vid genre and motivated a number of young bucks to sign on the dotted line. I still get a shiver down my spine watching that.

I'll be interested to see how the Dambusters remake turns out. I suspect it will either be very, very good or utterly rubbish. There is no middle ground. Let's hope for the former.

There certainly were aeroplanes in it. Tim Mills, who sometimes posts here, flew one of the Spitfires in that film when he was still a serving RAF squadron pilot.

(I know because I helped teach his daughter to fly in the early 1990s). :)

Worst Aviation film? The TV series, "Tales of the Golden Monkey", takes my vote. For example, the pilot (of a WW2 flying boat, somewhere over the Pacific) received a radio call asking him to give his position. He immediately looked out of the window....... and gave his exact latitude and longitude... :rolleyes:

I'd recommend these three:

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) based on the Doolittle Raid:
http://www.archive.org/details/thirt...nds_over_tokyo

The Purple Plain 1954 A Mosquito crashlands in a Burmese wilderness.
http://www.amazon.com/Purple-Plain-G.../dp/B00079ZACW

Journey Together (1943). RAF Pilot training in America.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Journey-Toge.../dp/B00004CQ7S

When Dr Strangelove was first shown the USAF were amazed at the accuracy of the Nuclear Release procedures depicted in the movie and tried to find out who had been advising the director.

One of my favourites is "By Dawns Early Light". A very political film but it shows the dilemmas facing a crew sent on a Nuclear mission.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Dawn's_Early_Light

Can't really comment on the whole of Top Gun; walked out out after 20 minutes because it was so boring and went to the pub instead!

The Battle of Britain, though, bloody fantastic!

When I was a recruiter (!),the 12 Squadron Buccaneers film (we used to lug a 16mm projector around in the back of the MT Chevette)usedto send the Coventry comprehensive kids to sleep. No bad thing, in my view.

But Watchdogs, now that was a far more exciting affair. 'The squadron is manned. Is it real or exercise?' That's the stuff to give em!

"No Sleep Till Dawn " was pretty good for its genre in the '50's. This was the one all about bringing the B-52 into service.
"High Flight" c.1957 -Cranwell as it should have been. My old Flight commanders boots star in a marching sequence.
"Tiger in the Sky" Absolutely dire crude progaganda about the Korean War. F-84's playing the part of Mig's.
"The Man in the Sky". '50's Tosh with Jack Hawkins trying to land a Bristol Freighter.
Best of all for me for sheer atmosphere and story telling. . "The Great Waldo Pepper" in the 70's.
Worst - difficult to choose!
And then there was "Q" Planes............
Time for me Cocoa.

A cracking thread!

In no particular order..

Best:

The Hunters - Robert Wagner in pre "Hart to Hart" days!
Battle of Britain - We'll never see that many REAL aircraft in a movie again
SAC - The moment when Dutch is shown the B-47, you can see the Homer Simpson struggle going on in his head between wife & "mistress"!
12 O'Clock High - We've all worked for Frank Savages....
The Way to the Stars - Just perfect...

Worst:

Wings of the Apache - Oh dear....
Pearl Harbour - Alec Baldwin as Mitchell? Just no!
ANY Iron Eagle Movie

Although not strictly totally aviation, there is a lot of flying sequences in A Bridge Too Far. Stellar cast too. The bit right at the start with the Dutch lad pedaling down the lane who spots the Tigers hiding in the bushes. In the background, out of the haze, a PR Spit drops down and howls past. Click click, a quick 180 and he's out again, with the Dutch lads enthusiastic waving returned with a quick wing waggle.:ok: Gets me every time.:{
And the Hispanos shooting up the Hurricanes French FOB at the start of BoB - how ferkin low is that?!:eek:
Pearl Harbour :yuk:

FILMS
 

Some of my favourites are:
BAT 21, even though it bears very little resemblance to the true events of that story.

STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND, poor story, not overly well acted, but truly stunning aircraft involved.

DR STRANGELOVE, just a cult classic film, and with one of the most realistic battle scenes of any film IMHO*. Also a very well travelled B52 crew, if you consider the navigator was the voice of Darth Vader in star wars.

* I consider the battle scene where the army attack the USAF base to be realistic, as it's very anonimous, quite confused, and with no heroics or glory. Plus with it being in B & W, it just seems to add grit to the whole thing.

*THREAD CREEP ON*
Did any of you read "Harrier squadron" in the Warlord comic, in the late seventies/early eighties
*THREAD CREEP OFF*

Barnstormer1968

Best Movie
 

For flying sequences, the recent I-Max movie "Fighter Pilot", filmed at Nellis AFB during a Red Flag exercise, has to be a leading contender. Even my wife, an ex-RAF "kid" was impressed.

In my humble opinion
 

Best:
Dambusters – Ultimate class film
633 Squadron – Heroic stuff
Battle of Britain - Legendary
Reach For The Sky - Classic
Black Hawk Down – Not overly an aviation flick, but I enjoyed it.
Apollo XIII – Good reflection of a true story with great actors and good direction.
Firefox – Good old Clint. Helluva jet, I wanted one!
Worst:
Iron Eagle (I - IV) – Words fail me, utter crap
Pearl Harbour – ...It's a great, bloated mess of a picture with a weak script and bland performances... and then some!

The best has got to be the old Air Cadet AEF pre-flight film before your Chipmunk flight......"Jump,jump John"...you know the one that was played on the old projector! :} Aaaarrr they were the days
Hat-Coat-I'm going now :O

The Dambusters as a given, Appointment in London isn't too bad and as it was filmed in 51 lots of Lancasters around even with H2S domes to give an air of realism.

Second Dr Strangelove trivia fact.

When Slim Pickings gets to the end of reading out the contents list of the survival pack, he says: "Shoot a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that!" The word Vegas was overdubbed towards the end of editing. He actually says "Dallas", but between the scene being shot and the film being released The Kennedy Assassination had taken place.

When I was living in Burgundy on an hotel barge ( long story ) in 1993, I had a copy of B of B sent over.

The French chef, then 24, and a mild aircraft enthusiast, was amazed,
" Ze German aircraft, zey come in so low, ze ----ing b----ds !"

He was also amazed because he'd never heard of it - not the film, the actual event !!!

It's a pity Neville Shute's books haven't been filmed properly, though I think 'The Way To The Stars' is close in empathy.

Worst for me has to be 'Firefox', I went to see that with an instrumentation chum, and we both came out and said " we actually paid to watch that ! " At least Airport-the Concorde was funny.

DZ,

No Highway is not that bad a film, but not a patch on the book. Now, can anyone guess what Aircraft type did they use to make the Rutland Raindeer out off ?

Actually flown by the late John Crewdson, and it was filmed at Bovingdon.

I believe that Buchon was being flown by Commandante Pedro Santa Cruz, who I believe was the Spanish AF CFI.

The pilot of the Spit was the late Neil Williams.

Top Gun
 

Well I never...

http://www.ieatpaint.com/topgun/

:eek:

Gee
Thanks. Couldn't remember if it was Williams or a Hanna aboard. Brilliant.

Wigan
Thanks. I think .....

Strangelove is a terrific film, despite the B52 exteriors-flying over the arctic which clearly show an aircraft shadow which is of a B29, but a model B52 matted onto it. But the B52 interiors look superb to me although guys who actually know the plane can always point out 'you can't get there from there' bits in movies.

In Thunderball, if I remember correctly, there's access from the rear crew position to the bomb bay. Not a feature of the actual Vulcan I think.

For more modern films, Dark Blue World is a good story of Czechs who came to england to fly in the BoB, I think a lot of flying footage is reused from the BoB film we all know.

Quoting BEagle: "Dr FOD and the Wayward Body" - had a couple of very nice points in it....."

That's the first one that popped into my head, too - can't think why! Fine film-making and very creative camera angles...

The shadow aircraft in Strangelove is a B17 not a B29.

a film that could lay claim to be both the best and at the same time the worst is 'Theirs is the glory' the first film about Operation Market Garden. Filmed in 1945 in rubble of Arnhem using survivors of the battle (hence the awful acting and the worst film claim).
"what do you mean you've got post traumatic stress syndrome laddie. When I shout action you run over there and shoot your mate who's playing the german." :\

>>>>>>>>Both probably wouldn't translate well to film, but I'd love to see someone make an attempt to make a film of Len Deighton's (fictional) 'Bomber', ...............<<<<<<<

Try the BBC Radio adaptation of the story available on CD.

Originally done in 'real time' from 2.30 to midnight, it is a chilling semi-documentary

i forget the title, but one the films i remember from my youth had jimmy cagney and others as bush pilots joining up after pearl. never forgot the duel between him in a hudsen and a nasty hun in a me 109 ,OVER THE ATLANTIC,he won by ramming it,utter old fashioned class!!

Target for Tonight:

http://www.nytimes.com//images/secti...46417atxhd.jpg

"It's a peach of a target, Sir!"

The Worst
 

Desert Thunder
A group of mavericks, misfits and convicts are trained for a secret deniable operation in Iraq. Led by Daniel Baldwin he trains them in USA where their training base get attacked by Iraqis.
After killing the Iraqis and the token bird running from their heli gunships in a bi-plane causing the helis to crash into mountainsides, they embark on their mission.

They get airborne from USA and fly non-stop to Iraq in their F16s (famed for their bubble canopies, but not a lot of people know that just behind the pilots head is a 5' x 5' MDF firewall!!!)
After getting cleared into Iraqi airspace by a carrier in the Med they coast into Iraq over it's western coast(!) and attack the airfield, then fly all the way back home non-stop for tea & medals.


My Dad got it free by answering a question in his local paper.
This film probably went straight to DVD it's so bad, which explains why they had to resort to giving it away in local evening papers.

Memphis Belle
 

I think you'll find it was William Wyler, not Howard Hawkes, who directed the original documentary Memphis Belle, the ground sequences of which were shot at Bassingbourn. His daughter, whose name I forget, made the 1980s re-make, with Harry Connick in the lead.

As another reasonable one to consider, how about Jan Sverak's Dark Blue World, about Czech pilots who escape to the UK and fly Spitfires of slightly anachronistic mark numbers in the Battle of Britain?