Flying Scenes From The Movies
 

With little else to do that night, I sat on my lounge last Saturday evening and watched my pirated DVD of the James Bond classic "The Spy who loved me". One scene stuck out. The high speed chase through the hills of Sardinia with Bond and the very edible Barbara Bach playing the heavy chested Russian Agent XXX. Bond and his girl in their modified Lotus sports car/submarine are persued along winding roads by a black, machine gun sporting Jetranger driven by an equally delicious and heavy chested assassin who eventually gets blown up by our man James. Lots of very low flying down the road, hard pedal turns, fake guns blazing and generally agile flying.

Anyone else recall the flick or have a favourite flying scene they can reecommend?

The best bit of the whole show is of course is when XXX escapes the submarine lair of the bad guy and emerges......dripping wet! Mmmmm. Made my night.

cheers

Not very original, I know, but for me probably Black Hawk Down and the remake of The Italian Job. The Hulk is probably worth a mention as well, simply for giving the taxpayer an opportunity to see Comanche in action after $8 billion of investment. Well, almost.

The trailer for this summer's Resident Evil 2 looks interesting - the film apparently features a CH-3/S-61 and a couple of MD520Ns. Plus Milla Jovovich !

For anyone in need of inspiration, try Rotary Action.


I/C

p.s. The JetRanger pilot in The Spy Who Loved Me was the gorgeous Caroline Munro, often reported to be the most popular Bond girl ever.

Perhaps the absolute best helicopter flying flick was "Birds of Prey" a TV movie from the 1970's. David Janssen played a helicopter traffic reporter who witnesses a robbery/kidnapping, and follows the bad guys for hundreds of miles, including a scene where he chases them through a parking garage.

Here is the IMDB listing:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069787/

Air wolf or Blue Eagle?

Nick, for the very first time I have to disagree. There was another one from the seventies called something very like 'Flight into Danger' (dreadful title but the only bad point of the film) starring Larry Hagman. At the time he was quite the helo pilot, and judging by the flying he was allowed to get away with by the film's producers, he was the film's producers.

The in-cockpit footage corresponded exactly to the things we saw his 500 doing from outside, and it was him flying it, without a shadow of a doubt. There's dialogue between him and the leading lady shot from the right-hand side of the cabin, while in the background the horizon swings up and down as they tear along at low level.

An Allouette II breaks the glass roof of a building with its skids (shot from inside the glass building and the helo); the 500 flies through a dockside shed (shot from outside and inside, Hagman flying); there's a chase between the Allouette and the 500 along a main street, skids scraping the ground; the 500 gets looped, can't remember if it's round a bridge; and on, and on, and on. In the opening, we even get to see the entire start sequence (in the hangar, and he goes on to play football with two kids using the skids). Stunning stuff!

Hilico,

I found what might be the flick you describe (being wrong is the way to learn, I think!). Is this it?

"Deadly Encounter"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083800/

[/ end of difference with Nick ]

dangerman
 

Movie scenes maybe spectacular but on sunday 25th of july i watched dangerman on discovery. after getting himself in some hot poop on the side of an active volcano he called in a freind to extract him by heli. Nothing new there except the weather was typhoon winds zero visability and sulphuric acid rain, but the experienced pilot arrived to save the film crew from danger. It was breath taking to see this guy actualy turn up in what was seriously crappy and dangerous conditions.:ok:

Apocalypse Now
 

How can we have this thread without the mention of Apocalypse Now !! Some all time classic action in H500Cs and Hueys... hundreds of them filling the sky

Truly a helicopter classic

[actually I'm guessing the H500s were the mil version, but hey, whos checking!]

The other thing about that film is they get the right noises with the right machines... one scene the noise could only come from a 500!

Funnily enough we were talking about 'Deadly Encounters' the other day. I looked it up on Amazon.com and to my delight found that they are selling it for only $12 on DVD! 'Birds of Prey' was slightly more at about $40.
Bought 4 copies.
Apparently my boss and me are having dinner with Mr. Hagman in August so I shall be raising the subject with him ( and obtaining an autographed copy!!). Sorry, just had to drop that in.

The original Italian Job and Attenborough's Oh! What A Lovely War - aerials for both by the UK's Mike Smith who runs Heli Air.
For the Italian Job he did the closing scene of the coach hanging over a cliff - which I think he did with an Alouette.
For Oh! What A .... he did the closing shot of thousands of crosses on a hillside above Brighton......I think each cross cost 1s 6d.

we were soldiers
 

if its heli movies then this adaptation of a true story tells the tale of how diverse the heli is and how it was exploited in the vietnam war

In Blackhawk Down...one of the Little Bird pilots reenacts his actual flight during the real fight....hats off to that gentleman!

Also...the best non-helicopter helicopter flying....much of the aerial shots done for Battle of Britain was shot by the owner of Helicopter Hire, Southend-on-the-Sea....while hanging on a trapeeze device slung underneath an Alouette II. She was also a stunt double for Pussy Galore in Goldfinger. She had offered me a job flying for them....and the village idiot here turned it down....whatever was I thinking???:uhoh:

There was always plenty of good chopper scenes in the old TV detective show Magnum PI with Tom Sellick in Hawaii too. A rainbow coloured Hughes 500 from memory. Maybe it was just the awesome beaches and reef below it that made it look good.
Hey Vaq, when you have dinner with Larry Hagman......... ask him who really shot him in the ass on Southfork ranch in Dallas will ya?
cheers

Vic

And another. Enemy of the State with Will Smith getting chased through a busy downtown metro area ( Maybe LA or NYC ?) by some angry government types with black shades and bad haircuts. Think it was a black twin squirrel getting the star treatment up and down the street chasing a defiant Smith. Must take a good awareness of rotor span and tail rotor position to drive something down a street. Must try it one day.

Happy late night viewing all.
Vic.

Funniest one I remember was an unknown WW2 hero film, supposedly deadly serious, where the two pilots (one of whom was possibly John Wayne) were flying a tandem Navy dive bomber. They were on a mission "flying in cloud somewhere over the Pacific Ocean", when the outline / shadow of a man suddenly appeared and slowly went past the cockpit.

Also the film "Airport" when ATC were talking down a 707 in a thick snowstorm to the dramatic sounds of an orchestra. The pilot was struggling to keep the aircraft upright, but the controller was so very helpful, saying useful things like "A little more left rudder, Jim".

Perhaps we should have another thread on the best "aviation film howlers".

;)

I always like the one in Die Hard II where the bad guys readjusted the ILS and made the airliners hit the ground, powerless as they were to stop the descent!

And where they were all trapped circling in the air, where they could see each other and the ground, but just stuck because the bad guys controlled the radios!!

Both were clearly the dream of ATC, full control of all those miscreant airplanes!

The 12E that has a tail rotor strike and subsequently obeys all the laws of physics in "Attack of the Killer Tomato's".

The look on the actors faces who are "not quite sure if this is in the script".

Go to "Facts" page one to see!

Killer Tomatoes Web Site

What about the chase scene in the movie "Outbreak" with Dustin Hoffman.?

What about then the scene from last James Bond movie, where he drops a MD600 out of Antonov AN-124(if I remember it right) starts it up on the way down and gets it in to hover only one or two feet from the ground.....:} crap not like blades would get twisted or anything

Charlie's Angel's - Full Throttle...............In the beginning scene; driving a transporter off a dam, Diaz gets into a shut down, blades folded, Ruskie helo. Starts & spreads the blades as it freefalls towards terra firma with the other two Angel's and their rescued agent doing a nice 'Alpha' dive into a starting helo and then with all aboard at the last minute they pull up before hitting the deck thereby making it a longer than five minute sequel. Must be true, it's in colour! Eat your heart out Bond.

Always had a soft spot for the two sinister Hughes OH6's in Capricorn One.
Liked the sequences of them chasing Telly Savalas in the biplane:ok:

Crabette....me thinks a bit of bias in your perspective...Charlie's Angels in preference to John Wayne? Oh, Dear!;)

"Sniper" with Tom Berenger, where the drug baron's R-22's turbine is whining down.

The Deadly Encounter film featured the flying of Bert Rhine in the Allouette sequence. Bert was also the infamous "Eric Stohler (sp?) in Firebirds. Bert worked with Schreiner Airways/Pelita Air Service in Indonesia and was also a Boeing Test Pilot.

Birds of Prey
 

I have to agree with NickLapos with regard to this:
Quote:
________________________________________________
Perhaps the absolute best helicopter flying flick was "Birds of Prey" a TV movie from the 1970's. David Janssen played a helicopter traffic reporter who witnesses a robbery/kidnapping, and follows the bad guys for hundreds of miles, including a scene where he chases them through a parking garage.
________________________________________________

The best bits include where he's chatting to his base on a hand held mike in his 500 with just the hint of a turbine in the background, the fact that his heli manages to do a 180 degree turn without him making any control inputs, and the chase scene where the (what I seem to remember is an) Alouette manages to keep up with the Hughes on the chase (really probable!). Anyhow, a pal of mine gave me a copy of an old VHS tape of this he'd made on a CD-ROM - it was a good laugh!!

2Sticks:ok:

Another likeable sequence is from the fllm Local Hero.
It's at the end when a Jetranger flies in over a beach, during a sunset. The accompanying music gives a pleasant image.

Sandy Helmet,

You're right, that is totally unbelievable. Someone with a lot of money flying an R-22? Nah.

How about that knife huh!
 

There was Rambo 2 also. Old John J Rambo gets chased about the jungle by a Russian Hind (or something dressed up like one) which I think he finally shoots down with a bow and arrow.

Aaahhh, that's where the mujahadeen were going wrong in Afghanistan back in the eighties. Forget the AAA and missiles. Pluck a sharp stick at them and they just explode into a zillion pieces. Oh to be a "Hollywod Stunt pilot".

Actaully, I remember he also knocked a jetranger out of the sky with a rock in Rambo 1. This guy is good. I wouldn't fight him over the loose change on the bar.

cheers
Gin.

Terminator 2 - where the T2000 is flying a 206 chasing Arnie down the freeway, one hand on the cyclic, the other on the collective and the er....other other holding and firing a machine gun. Just think how useful that third arm would be when re-folding a quarter mill map in flight...

Rich Lee wrote "Bert (Rhine) was also the infamous "Eric Stohler (sp?) in Firebirds"

Wasn't Eric Stohler in "Wings Of The Apache"? The world's worst helicopter film featuring the worlds most wooden actors Nicholas Cage and Sean Young? It was billed as rotary-wing's answer to "Top Gun" and I rushed off to see it as soon as it came out. SH-1Te. Wouldn't have encouraged me to sign up.

And speaking of naff - what about the Squirrel sequence in one of the Bond films, where they "fly" down the street in about a 70 degrees nose down attitude and 5kts groundspeed.....

Hows about Hamburger Hill....the scene where the Huey's are doing a Combat Assault (CA)...with the blades curling the fog and generating their own in the votices....very impressive images.

Also liked the hot tub scene too....but that is another story....from R and R.:ok:

Just thought of another one: That dreadful film 'Rat Race' with Rowan Atkinson, where the girl at the end is trying to start an A-Star (Squirrel) and the clever sound guys have used the noise of a recip turning over.

Yes indeed on both counts. "Wings Of The Apache" and "Firebirds" are one in the same film. They changed the name for reasons unkown. And yes, it qualifies as one of the worst helicopter films and it did feature the worlds most wooden actors. There is actually a film that was produced that used a clever mix of computer animation and footage from "Wings Of The Apache" to produce an even worse helicopter film. Don't know the name, but it is bad....really, really bad.

The badness of a movie is directly proportional to the number of helicopters in it.

Dave Barry

Watched a film recently with some hero type shooting at an orange coloured UH-1 type only for the close-up to be a Squirrel!

You've got the Hiller whanging round Bond in "From Russia With Love" and the supposed lift off of the R22 from the train in "Goldeneye" - also featuring the Tiger. Two Dauphin feature in "Octopussy"

Did like the remake Italian Job with the '500 flying under the road... very impressive.

Another film is Biggles with the Jet Ranger dog fighting with the Stearman... and the mock up blown up which looks more than a bit dodgy...

The bad guys in the A-Team always flew '500's too

OAW

MH68 Stingray in Bad Boys II, some really great scenes of two aircraft taking out a speed boat!!

Watching Airwolf lift out of his cave and hit his turbo's. Stringfellow hawk was one hell of a pilot. Old Dominic Santinin must have been a top notch mechanic as well, as string once flew the 222 to 100,000 ft. Good job he never had to perform an auto coming out of that cave !!!

I actually hacked up when I remember that corny scene in the Bond flick with the squirrell flying down the street with it's nose pointed nearly straight down and moving at wheelchair speed, rotors tearing through dozens of rope clothes lines in some seedy China town. Sarongs and lap laps and ropes tangled everywhere with no effect on the control of the bird. Can't remember how that squirrel was destroyed. Maybe Rambo stepped out of a passing Rickshaw and knocked it out with a well thown fish head from the rubbish bin.........

Nobody f*cks with Rambo!

Can't remember which Bond film it was but there was a pre-opening credits section where James gets taken for a ride in a B206. The pilot gets shot and James finds out that Blofeld has got the chopper under radio control. James naturally regains control and picks up Blofeld's wheelchair on the front of the skids and drops him down a chimney. Classic.

BTW, it's always interesting to look at heli's rotor heads in films as you can usually see where they've used a model chopper - such as when Frank Murphey loops Blue Thunder - the chopper that gets looped has got 2 blades and a flybar with weighted paddles on the end!

Has anyone given any thought to the VNE of Airwolf? Using that boost button must push it over the limit? :ok:

Victor two
The Squirrel in "The World is Not Enough" is brought down by Bond who rides the motor bike at the chopper sliding it down the streeet under the disk whilst holding a steel cable which he then throws into the tail rotor which causes a loss of control and it smashes into the surrounding buildings in a big flaming ball... I think I need to get out more!:8

CyclicWaggle
The other Bond film where Blofeld is deposited down the chimney is called I think "Live and Let Die"... The Jet Ranger was still around a year or two back but I think it has since crashed. I also believe that at the bottom of the chimney you'll still find the dropped prop... If the Chimney is still there... it was filmed back in '72-73. The pilot, who's name escapes me got the dummy down the chimney on first take by all accounts.

Another film with Helicopter action in a town is "Swordfish" with the Flying Crane carrying the bus and the escape in the Explorer.

OAW :E

OrangeArmWaver, CyclicWaggle - think the pilot was Marc Wolf and the machine was G-BAKS (RIP). It used to belong to the Galliford Group and would regularly land at a construction site in Harwich - where it and its pilot at the time would be ruthlessly examined and interrogated by a really irritating chopper-spotter - me.