Aviation as viewed by non pilot geeks

Captain Morgan · Post by **Captain Morgan** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 9:42 pm

I just finished watching the movie Air Rage. Anyone else see this piece of crap? Aside from a B movie plot it's full of air scenarios that would insult the intelligence of a six year old: A hijacker accidentally bumps the exit lever of a 747 and the door flies open (forward--into the wind) and out he goes. The chick leans out into the airflow (to see if he's really gone of course) then shuts the door. The pilots are dead and ATC gives the Flight Attendant instruction on the finer points of landing a 747. "Turn from bearing 619 to 520" WTF??? That wouldn't make sense in a Submarine! "Now the lever on your left marked flaps, pull it when I say, NOW!" and she lands on the centerline. It makes the classic movie Airplane look like a documentary.

Hey, why didn't ATC just take over and land the plane by remote? (I've actually heard that question from an adult.)

Am I just paranoid, or do pilots really not get the credit they/we deserve with the public. As a man watched a jet land I heard him remark "well thats gotta be easier than bringing in a 5000 foot train".

???

Perhaps when we've uneventfully arrived in a snowstorm with RVR1200 and 200' ceilings, and the pax deplane like nothing happened then it should be a compliment to us. Nobody really thinks about it, because we made it look easy,

Can anyone else think of some stupid aviation scenes in movies?

just another pilot · Post by **just another pilot** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 10:31 pm

Anything with Lee Majors in it.

Duke Elegant · Post by **Duke Elegant** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 11:05 pm

I think it was one of the disaster type movies where George Kennedy was Captain. He has some sort of problem so he slides open the cockpit window and fires a Flare Pistol while yelling Mayday into the mike.... he was all sweated up too.

And even worse was the movie Always where Richard Dreyfus is flying an A26 fire bomber when he runs out of fuel at 100feet and he glides for five minutes and makes it back to base , while he nonchalantly whistles a tune . (An A26 glides like a greased crowbar)
Then Holly Hunter flies one and fire bombs at night. She is in the flames for about five minutes as she so daintilly brushes her hair out of her eyes and then she ditches in a lake and swims ever so gracefully to the surface. The USAF manual states that it is impossible to survive an A26 ditching.

But I did like it when John Goodman bombs retardant onto the left engine of an A26 that was on fire with his PBY. He put the fire out too.
I didn't think a PBY could catch an A26 even if the 26 had one engine out , eh Cat Driver?

Bcn-In-Bnd · Post by **Bcn-In-Bnd** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 3:59 am

.....i kinda liked that movie (it was called ALWAYS)

Radio Phone · Post by **Radio Phone** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:09 am

My personal favorite has to be Air Force One. Talk about ann assualt on the proffessional senses! When the '47 rotates and cleas the terminal building amoong other things is pretty bad.

Battle of Britain - now there's a flying movie.

RP

chewsta · Post by **chewsta** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:51 am

I kinda like that classic "all in one display" you see movies like Air Force One and Executive Decision. There is one CRT in the centre of the Instrument Planel that dislplays everything you ever needed to know in big font on a red background with suitable instructions to fix the situation.

Wish I had one of those!

(There was also a good article in ALPA's magazine a few months ago by a pilot who was the "technical advisor" on a tv movie involving an airplane. Apparently he got pretty pissed off cause it was so bad.)

cedarjet · Post by **cedarjet** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 7:50 am

most aviation related movies, pilots always get killed. they go about it in two ways;

1) captain gets killed right away, then followed by the co-pilot. thats where the terrorist/flight attendant/ or 14yr old girl fly the 747.
or
2) the co-pilot gets shot first as a warning. poor bastard.

Driving Rain · Post by **Driving Rain** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 8:06 am

Captain of The Clouds with Jimmy Cagney. I love it when Jimmy catches a fly and pulls the canopy back and watches it go as he releases it out into the slipstream.

Panama Jack · Post by **Panama Jack** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 8:39 am

cedarjet wrote:2) the co-pilot gets shot first as a warning. poor bastard.

Isn't that why we're always so happy when we upgrade and why we're pleased to slip the 4 bars on our epaulettes and make the point of showing them off?

jimmyjazz · Post by **jimmyjazz** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 8:44 am

I didn't get the name of it but this one has a guy trying to catch kidnapers but he's not supposed to leave the house so he forwards the phone to his cell. He then jumps in his float plane and when they call he says he has to cut the engine so they think he's at home. So he cuts the engine by pushing the mixture all the way in,then the 180 stops dead in the air and the nose

points straight down for about 2 minutes, he then hangs up and hits the starter and it cranks over finally starting just before he hits the ground of course, he then climbs back to about 1500 and does this 3 or 4 more times. Also he was able to somehow track the bad guys cell with his GPS and of course land on his car. We watched this at the crew quarters last year it was hilarious.

raven54 · Post by **raven54** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 9:33 am

that was a good one, called "Trapped." i love the shot of the altimeter after he cuts the engine, if a meteorite had an altimeter on it when entering the atmosphere you'd get the same effect. that air rage was a good one, but for even more entertainment you gotta watch "air marshall" that friggin jet lands at mach 2, with a 10 year old kid at the yoke, good stuff. and the small jet with an elevator inside is a nice touch.

Snarky · Post by **Snarky** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 9:55 am

My roommate rented this beauty once in college, I wanted to dig my eyes out with a spoon, but the only other activity available was to actually study! So naturally we watched it start to finish. I seem to remember a part where ATC turns on the "landing signals" at the airport so that the plane would pick up the landing signals and automatically turn to the airport and land! Where can I get this equipment? If only my nap time were no longer interrupted by those pesky landings and takeoffs!

Check out :
http://www.soulplane.com/

Tom Arnold and Snoop Dogg! How can you lose? Should someone organize and avcanada night at the movies?

Right Seat Captain · Post by **Right Seat Captain** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 2:41 pm

Snarky wrote:My roommate rented this beauty once in college, I wanted to dig my eyes out with a spoon, but the only other activity available was to actually study!

I think you mean a hooker. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

desksgo · Post by **desksgo** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 3:53 pm

Duke Elegant wrote:
Then Holly Hunter flies one and fire bombs at night. She is in the flames for about five minutes as she so daintilly brushes her hair out of her eyes and then she ditches in a lake and swims ever so gracefully to the surface. The USAF manual states that it is impossible to survive an A26 ditching.

The manual doesn't account for there being a guardian angel in the back seat, Duke

But, now that I think of it, on most of my flights, it should!

The A26 in Always caught the the PBY...the original scene called for the PBY to catch the A26, but CAT was unavailable for that stunt!! Still, I did like that movie. It had some great footage in it, I wanna fly for Wing n' Prayer delivering birthday greetings!!

desksgo · Post by **desksgo** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 3:56 pm

Radio Phone wrote:My personal favorite has to be Air Force One. Talk about ann assualt on the proffessional senses! When the '47 rotates and cleas the terminal building amoong other things is pretty bad.

Battle of Britain - now there's a flying movie.

RP

Ahmen Bro! What a great movie BOB was!

Now Executive decision was a good one, just how many guys are we squeezing into that f117? I know executives with less room on their Citations!

JBI · Post by **JBI** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 5:00 pm

If I remember correctly, the only good thing about executive decision is that Steven Segul dies fairly early in the movie. Just think of how much worse it could have been!

co-joe · Post by **co-joe** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 12:43 am

Die Hard, where the terrorists moved the DH below ground level and crashed the plane! Oh man, that was a classic. People I've talked to actually didn't know that wasn't possible.

The only thing worse than the aviation realism (lack of) in that movie was the way Superstation butchered THE line "yippie kai-yay mr. falcon" ??? What was that?

CJ

Shiny Side Up · Post by **Shiny Side Up** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 4:44 pm

While not primarily aviation movies some of the best aviation stuff is in A Bridge Too Far They actually had to make the Horsa Gliders for it.

The worst would have to be Pearl Harbor. What an irresponsible piece of crap, people are going to grow up to believe that the two guys who actually got off Wheeler field went on the Doolittle raid. And if you're so concerned about saving weight that you replace the waist guns with broomhandles why do you still take the gunners along?

bigred · Post by **bigred** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 6:23 pm

shiny side the gliders they had to build for the movie if i remember right were waco cg4-a's also they took the tail gunners along as they were the line of site for the pilot from the tail as in the original raid the only guns removed were the tail guns and therfore the pilot needed the waist and upper dude.
Red

oldtimer · Post by **oldtimer** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 7:15 pm

Duke Elegant had most of it correct, as I recall. George Kennedy was the Co-pilot. In Concorde at FL a whole bunch @ M2.02 being chased by a private F4 with missiles. Opens the DV window to fire a flare gun to fool heat seekers. Didn't even mess his hair. Funny thing is George Kennedy is a pilot, used to own an Aztec.

Shotgun Chuck McCoy · Sat Feb 21, 2004 11:30 pm

I am surprised that nobody mentioned Blue Max! Classic George Peppard, and some great edge-of-your-seat dogfighting footage, and the odd beautiful replica or two. Good ol' chivalrous Knights of the Air style flick, from the Hun's point of view.

Lets see, then there was Memphis Belle

With some super corny scenes, and absolutely horrible model footage,

and my two personal favorites, Empire of the Sun, and Catch 22 - nothing beats the scene in Empire of the sun where the P-51 rips by Jim on the roof in slow-mo, or where they beat up the Japanese airstrip, and for Catch 22, the opening silence is broken by the starting of the engine of a B-25...I get goose bumps just hearing that sound in my head...

"P-51, Cadillac of the Sky!"

joe to go · Post by **joe to go** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 12:29 am

I can't think of the name of the movie but it starred Adam Sandler. They showed outside footage of the plance which was a metro. But then the scene changed and it showed 2 people inside the plane fighting in an area that was almost the size of an F-28. Its kinda like on the Dukes of Hazzard when you would hear squealing (i dont know how to spell that) noises as they spin the tires on the gravel. I think these movies must be written by the same people that write aviation stories in the newspaper. Like Air Georgian's incident a month ago when one paper said that all a passenger on the inbound flight could remember was flying through white cloud the whole way out there. ooooooooh. LMB

Lick me Balls

joe

Flying Low · Post by **Flying Low** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 3:24 am

Ah yes! But have you seen how much interior room the Challenger has on the TV show Counterstrike?

ahramin · Post by **ahramin** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 11:38 am

The Blue Max was an excellent movie, and george peppard has some beautiful lines in it. But the best movie pilot ever is ...

MAJOR KONG

"they might be able to harpoon us but they damn sure aint going to spot us on no radar"

Now there is a guy with the right stuff.

Speaking of which, while the flying scenes are horrid, The Right Stuff has some of the best pilot scenes out there, once they get away from the airplane stuff and into the "space vehicle" stuff.

"What Gus is saying here ..."

ahramin

Shiny Side Up · Post by **Shiny Side Up** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 5:17 pm

bigred wrote:shiny side the gliders they had to build for the movie if i remember right were waco cg4-a's also they took the tail gunners along as they were the line of site for the pilot from the tail as in the original raid the only guns removed were the tail guns and therfore the pilot needed the waist and upper dude.
Red

IRL that's what they did which might make sense. In the movie they dump pretty much all the guns; upper, waist and tail. Nevermind the scene where buddy heroically crashes his B-25 into those Japanese soldiers to save his friend.

For A Bridge Too Far 12 Horsa Models were built, four of which were flyable for various scenes. The flying ones cost around 35,000 to build. Not to mention when was the last time you saw a C-47 towing a glider?

The buz job the Spit does in the film is pretty excellent, but the pair of P-47s that do the strike in the one scene are really a pair of mocked up Harvards - you can see if you freeze it, they only have two bladed props.

My favorite aviation scenes come from Air America Lots of pure cheese, but its all good. The coloring scene in the back of the Porter is priceless, and I dig the footage of that one landing on that mountain strip.
Its also ironic how Jr. there is so opposed to the drug trade...