Warbird Information Exchange

The film thread got me thinking about the use of aircraft in film and the horror of seeing them abused. In your opinion, what is the most disturbing use of aircraft in a film?

Two pop into mind at the moment.

Steelyard Blues - they burn a Catalina in the end.

Tora Tora Tora - All the Catalinas they destroyed.

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THE PURPLE PLAIN WITH GREGORY PECK.
THOSE NIT WITS DESTROYED A BEAUTIFUL DH MOSQUITO.

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Don't touch my junk!!

You beat me to "Purple Plain", Jack.

Don't forget all the B-17's getting chopped up in the beginning of "Best Years of Our Lives".

How about chopping up an intact B-29 to make the raft in "Last Flight of Noah's Ark"?

(But I thought the PBY's in "Tora" were fakes).

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

It's my understanding that several non-airworthy Catalines were blown up.

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Scott Rose
Editor-In-Chief/Webmaster
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'633 Squadron' burning of Mossies

Dave

The War Lover.....two of the three airplanes were scrapped right after filming....but not during so I guess that doesn't really count. NWM's Fuddy Duddy is the survivor.

John

I dont know what the title is, but I can find out!!!! It was a stupid documentary of 2 guys going around the world to different places to surf. They were too surfers from calif. So at one point, there told of this place and the only way to get there was by plane so they were in this Grumman Goose. You see the footage and note that the N number is blanked out........well it sets down in the water and the next scene its in a bay and comes down on one float then collapses then its forced on the other tip then back to the other where she starts to skip across the surface sideways then onto the beach HARD......enough to bend the blades on one engine!!!!

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005

The Cats in Tora came from Long Beach, CA (Steward-Davis Co.)

Flight of the Phoenix?

Scott et al--

Not really the fault of the film project, but the last "working" B-17 (IGN's F-BEEA) was destroyed by fire in an accident at RAF Binbrook during filming of the 1990 "Memphis Belle".

The slice-and-dice of a perfectly good B-29 airframe for "The Last Flight Of Noah's Ark", already mentioned, ticked me off hugely when the film came out. But I have to go with the Viking funeral treatment foisted on at least one Mosquito B.35 for Mirisch's "633 Squadron" (and its sequel) in the early sixties. Incredibly, a promo "still" showing a blazing Mosquito up on its nose appears prominently in a feature on the film...in Volume 1 #2 of Air Classics--! Of course that episode was two-edged; there are probably MORE rather than fewer ex-RAF Mossie T.3s and B.35s still about because of the films.

BTW, a grounded TB-25N mocked-up to represent an A-20 was also blown to bits for "Tora Tora Tora" along with the grounded PBYs.

S.

Tora Tora Tora destroyed a lot of P-40 stuff as well. Real engines and props on the mock ups.

Well... lets see, there were about a dozen T-6's destroyed in "Where Eagles Dare" when the snow plow on the bus driven by Richard Burton whacks into their tails one by one... now that was very painful!

Then there's the scene in "The man with the golden gun" where they have a demolition derby at the airport smashing planes left and right... knocking a C-47 sideways, and then landing a car on its wing.

There was "Catch 22" where they burned a perfectly good B-25, although the film probably saved a couple of dozen other airframes, so I guess that's a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

Then there was "Air America" where they wrecked several Pilatus Porters, and C-123's.

They must have written off several dozen SPADs, Fokker D.VII's et.al. in Howard Hugh's "Hell's Angels" too.

They munched another C-123 Provider in that awful turkey "Con Air" as well....

One of the worst of course was the wanton destruction recently of about a dozen English Electric Lightnings for that total belly-flop, straight-to-video space movie. Forget it's name, but it was absolutely god-awful!

The list goes on!

Richard

Endless Summer 2

From what I gather the landing was completely an accident. I'm not sure if the guy they showed as the "pilot" was really the pilot or not, but it makes sense after watching the landing. Definitely pretty wild.

Wing Commander... and it was god aweful

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Scott Rose
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Warbirds Resource Group - Warbird Information Exchange - Warbird Registry

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The airport demo derby was in "Live and Let Die", which finished off a couple Cubs, ripped the wings off a helpless Cessna 140 and landed a Chevy Nova on the wing of a DC-3. Actually more '73 Chevys bit the dust in that flick than anything else. "Golden Gun" torched a poor little Seabee. "The Island", however, managed not only to belly in a clean, low time Gooney Bird and put the torch to it but shot and edited it badly to boot. Of course "The Rookie" saw one of the last potentially savable CV-880s lose half a wing - and the Susan Clark Amelia Earhart biopic crunched a Lockheed 12 and another Moth...

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)