Warbird Information Exchange

Perhaps this has already been answered, but what was the source of that sound clip that seems so prevalent in movies featuring warplanes?

It's often a Stuka (the higher-pitched one); not sure what the source of the lower-pitched one is. But foley artists are a strange bunch: could be something like a carrot grinder or a slowed-down washing machine full of bees.

Just seems odd they all seem to use the same soundtrack, even now. Like the movie Airplane! Where they use what seems to be the audio track of a DC-6 with the engines out of synch.

Maybe they are just lazy & cheap?

Airplane! is a near shot for shot remake of 1957's "Zero Hour!". In the original film, Ted Stryker is flying a DC-4. The propliner soundtrack is both for comedy and a nod to the original film, and was also likely an open source overlay that did not add to the production budget.

I assume your referring to the sound effect that begins at about the 30 second mark in this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWpNPG3ozq8

I've always wondered myself. I think it may go back to the days of the slipstream in the bracing wires of biplanes. But it became so iconic that it gets used for everything. I remember when Peter Jackson's "King Kong" remake came out in 2005, I was surprised and impressed that he didn't succumb to the temptation to use it when Kong knocks down the planes on the Empire State Building.

SN

Yes, that’s the exact one. I’ve been to hundreds of airshows and flown in many warbirds, yet have never heard anything like that.

I'd have to watch it again (it's tough but somebody's gotta do it!) and that reminds me of the final denouement of Stachel (George Peppard) in The Blue Max - if memory serves you don't see the final dive and crash as the camera focuses on James Mason and Ursula Andress while that background crescendo happens with an sxlosion visible in the distance.

The most astonishing "wind in the wires" I've heard was a fixed gear Polikarpov biplane restoration which appeared at Duxford a couple of times sone years ago. Very noticeable howls from the wiring (I assume) as it pulled out from loops and other vertical manoeuvres.

as BDK said, Maybe they are just lazy & cheap?

and the SBDs attack on Pearl Harbor gets tiring.

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I think it's more a case of "that's what people expect because they've always heard it in movies, and it would sound wrong if we used the correct sound effects." Kind of like gunshots. Almost all the old westerns and war movies used the same sound effects, which sound nothing like a real firearm. Only recently with shows and movies like Band Of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan have they finally started to make the weapons sound more believable. I see a similar mindset in model building. The instructions typically say to paint every American aircraft "interior green" inside, whether it was actually used on that particular aircraft or not, simply because that's what everybody expects.

And yeah, the SBDs bombing Pearl Harbor (forget it, he's rolling ) definitely gets old. I'm assuming it's because all that old John Ford footage is in the public domain.

SN

Yep, we don't actually see the crash. We hear the plane break up an go into a dive (with the iconic sound effect) while the camera is on Mason and Andress in the office, then see a closeup of Mason stamping Peppard's file at the same time as the sound of the impact. Eventually the camera moves outdoors and we see the plume of smoke in the distance. Now I've got a hankering to drag out the DVD again.

Whenever I hear that sound, I always think of the scene in "The Great Waldo Pepper" when his friend is trying to perform an outside loop (in a DeHavilland Chipmunk modified to resemble something from the 1920s.)


SN

Just started watching Blue Max, pretty sure it's exactly the same sound during the opening credits! Won't see it all tonight... afterwards I'll watch Waldo Pepper just cos it's a great film!

Lucky for you, you're correct! See a post in the Origins of Aviation Cliches thread.

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I can't confirm that he actual diving screaming airplane is this one, but Pancho Barnes was hired by Hollywood (I'm think Howard Hughes, but probably incorrect) to dive and fly by a microphone to capture airplane sounds for a film. It might have come from that session. Not sure though.
Jerry

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Noah, I envy you getting to converse (even if by email) with Ben Burtt. What a legend of the industry!! And how wonderful to have such deep dives into those sound effects.

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"It's his plane, he spent the money to restore it, he can do with it what he wants. I will never understand what's hard to comprehend about this." - kalamazookid, 20/08/2013
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Belatedly, I've enjoyed watching both Blue Max and Waldo Pepper in the last week or two and it probably is THAT sound clip in both films...

I'm going to watch Magnificent Men (60 years old this week) next, I don't think it features THAT sound effect, but it does have the very gorgeous Irina Demick as well as several delightful flying replicas - apart from the late Miss Demick I would have loved a closer acquaintanceship with the Demoiselle replica; though if it struggled to fly with Joan Hughes at the helm I doubt it would have even bounced over a mole hill with somebody probably nearly twice her size flattening the tyres...