Final Countdown
 

I have it on DVD.

Link? Description? What is SyFY?

More information required!

HD - High Definition: For those with eyes that still work.

Guess it's this: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080736/

Probably not:

Tomcats vs Zeros if I recall

The music
 

The music reminds me of the Queens Castle in Pat Pong , Bangkok at the end of the show. Time for a last stagger along Silom Road to the Dusi Thani.

Saw it for the 1st in the Corporals Club at RAF Sek Kong 1982

Ah right, got it. A bit like "The Philadelphia Experiment" it seems. That was a load of old tosh as well!

Shortly after the film was released, a Shackleton squadron possibly caused a Final Countdown moment on another of the USN's finest. The said Squadron was on a deployment to St Mawgan to take part in the two week JMC off the SW Approaches, and was to give continuous AEW cover to the blue task group (yes - that Sqn). One of the crews decided that they would play the "War" properly, and the captain insisted that the transit out was as covert as possible - two hours at 150 feet, radar off. Also at the brief, the crew was told to look out for a Kresta II which was following one of the task groups. An hour into the transit, the captain, who fancied himself as a bit of a recognition expert, suddenly declared that he had visual on the Kresta II.."Lets go and take a photograph". The Navigator, who was an ex-AEOp and did know about ship recognition wandered up to the flight deck for a look...."Doesn't look lie a Kresta to me". Meanwhile, the Shackleton accelerated towards the ship which grew bigger - very slowly. More ships appeared and suddenly the sky was filled with two F14s followed by a Prowler as they tried to fly at the Shackleton's speed but stayed well above! The penny dropped with the Captain. "Oops its a Carrier Battle Group - never mind let's still go for a look". "Not a good idea skip - its a carrier and they are flying - not good to burst the circuit". Meanwhile, the F14s continued to circle above as the Prowler decided to drop down to try to formate on the Shackleton - now slowed down again. The mission crew flicked through a few radio frequencies to try to contact the shadowing aircraft to hear a surreal transmission back to the ship "I don't know Sir... I think its a Liberator". Discretion took over, and a 90 right slowly began to open the range again at 160 kts. Low level transits to the Fleet didn't happen again that exercise.

They nearly lost a Tomcat during the filming of the dogfight with the Zeros. The Tomcat lost too much speed and plummeted towards the ocean, with the pilot recovering just in time. The filmakers said afterwards there was a sharp intake of breath and some mutterings from the navy top brass when they watched an advance screening.

Can’t resist....
 

At 2m 47s for anyone who hasn't seen the near crash yet
I read they actually knocked it off for the day immeditaly after that. The F-14A was fitted with the engine intended for the F-111B, which was a bomber engine essentially. While it had a lot of power, it took a while to spool up. The aircraft was new when this was filmed, and the pilot had come from another type and was very nearly caught out.

Loved the high tech piece of drift string on the Tomcat windscreen. :)

"Splash the Zeros. I say again, splash the Zeros... This has got to be a dream."

Great film, with some superb flying sequences, a terrific soundtrack, wonderful visual effects from the late Maurice Binder (he of so many Bond titles sequences) and the posing of an interesting and intriguing moral dilemma. What would YOU do with that power, in that situation?

Ahhh, that'll be Zero airspeed then. :}

Salute!

Yeah, one of my best fantasy flicks.

RE" close call
The low encounter with the waves was after a poor lag roll to get more nose-tail position and he "dished out" a tad low for my taste. Needed to get nose higher initially, then a quick roll to the Zeke's six.
Five years later, the USN also helped the Top Gun movie and there was one low altitude roll and recovery that scared me.
Both of those, with their good aerial segments and basic launch/recovery aboard the boat, had a good effect on enlistment here in the colonies.
New Top Gun could be a nice one.
Gums sends...

Love the film and won a Monogram combined kit of a VF-84 Tomcat and the USS Nimtiz long before I saw the film, however if you look closely you will note that all of the in cockpit shots of the F-14 in the clip above are actually in an A-6!!!!

I've watched this film hundreds of times, and I've never noticed the A-6 cockpit shots - it makes perfect sense. Another 'fun' fact is that, though set in the Pacific off Hawaii the film was actually shot in the Atlantic.

Not in a flyable condition. The US government was very concerned about the aircraft and/or their parts finding their way to Iran, and so all that were sent to museums etc were first cut in half and then welded back together.

A fake Mars landing, but yes a very good movie and the Little Bird flying sequence is worth the price of admission alone.

Have seen a few, including one at a Mildenhall Air Fête (remember those?) that is possibly the loudest display I've ever heard, I think it was a re-engined Tom. A very fun display too, amazing manoeuvrability for such a large aircraft.

A brilliantly trashy film that I remember going to see at the cinema on release. It was almost thirty years later I got hold of the DVD.

Strictly speaking it's the premise that's preposterous. Once you've got past that the plot isn't too bad, certainly better than Top Gun IMHO.

Birds of Prey 73
Heli traffic reporter chases bank robbers in a Heli, even both of them flying a Heli around inside a hangar shooting at each other!

Birds of Prey is a classic, as is Deadly Encounter with Larry Hagman. Little Birds were quite the movie star back in the day..

Full movie here

IIRC, this is the first Hollywood movie or tv series that one sees F-14 appear so from ones memory on screen, in chronological order...

Raise The Titanic : Dirk Pitt (played by the late Richard Jordan) calls on the 'surprise package' when Prevlov and his KGB entourage threaten the NUMA / Navy crew if they dont hand over the Titanic. Package is a
pair of F-14A plus one SSN.

Airwolf Season 1 Episode 1: Shadow Of The Hawke: Film footage of (laughingly Jolyl Rogers) taking off from a CVN off the Libyan coast when Archangel and Faye are on board monitoring Hawke's mission o recover
'The Lady'
Top Gun :)

The Hunt For The Red October: F-14A action on baord carrier when Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin turns up in SH-3H)

Navy SEALS:: opening scene of CVN and F-14 on deck

The Finest Hour: CNN footage of F-14A/D taking off during Desert Shield/Storm

Clear And Present Danger: When the F/A-18A (CAG bird with LGB) comes up on the elevator , can see the rest of the CVW on deck including the F-14.

JAG: see various footage of F-14 taken from Top Gun and other archive footage throughout series.

Executive Decision: Once again the Jolly Rogers come to the rescue lol in escorting ready to shoot down the hijacked 747.

Robin Cook's Invasion: (medical thriller albeit with ET/Sueprnatural element apart from usual autopsy tables, hospital sysnonymous with his books and film) film foorage of F-14 intercepting UFO

Behind Enemy Lines: Blink and you will miss it when Burnett's F/A18 is launched, they change different views of the flight deck ....see F-14 launched.

NCIS: various footage again some from Top Gun and other news stories, documentaries.

Cheers

Chopper2004, that's seriously impressive, but maybe you need to get out more.....

Not that impressive. He forgot Supercarrier.

Mind you, I wish I could.

The only 'preposterous' issue would be time travel - which could be applied to pretty much any movie that incorporates time travel. Once you postulate that time travel is possible, the rest flows fairly well - in fact I'd rate it as one of the better (best?) time travel movies.
Although I suspect that time travel truly is impossible - to many unresolvable issues with 'changing history'.

Back to Thread.............

For those unfamiliar with cinemas in the USA, the audience tends to be more interactive than the reserved audiences in UK cinemas.

I was on exchange with the USN in California when this movie was released, and went to see it in a cinema in San Diego.

San Diego was (still is??) a Navy town, and the audience was mostly USN matelots, wearing "Nimitz" baseball caps.

When Kirk Douglas said "Splash the Zeros" the place erupted in cheers and Yahoos and other expletives.

It was brilliant!.

I still love watching the flying scenes, and I still think the F-14 was a magnificent beast. I even still like watching Top Gun, SOT that I am!

I only got to fly in an F-14 once - but it was from NIMITZ in the Gulf - and it was all I could have hoped for!

Quite the opposite when watching Monty Python's 'The Meaning Of Life'....

Cool I bet it like its successor Top Gun, FC helped towards recruiting more enthusiasts wanting to fly in the USN?

What did you fly on exchange?

Cheers

Lol I was sat in pub garden typing away earlier :)

Cheers