Do you remember these appearances on TV which may have been long forgotten:
Fantasy Island
Episode unknown – a guy wants his fantasy to be WWII aerial combat and he and his mate are given a P51D each and they go hunting Zeros. I know the show was usually filmed in Hawaii, but were the warbirds scenes filmed there too? This is a very vague memory indeed.
These ones not so vague as I have them on tape:
It Ain’t Half Hot Mum
Two here: In episode ‘Flight To Jawani’ the gang fly in B17 ‘Sally B’ – you see her flying and on the ground in close ups. Filmed at Duxford. It first aired 7th December 1976. Sally B was in her silver scheme. I have never yet seen the aircraft as credited for this appearance in her this show on her lists of Film and TV appearances. Do the current owners not know about it?
The other was in episode ‘Star Commandoes’ a P47D was seen attacing the men by accident. This too came from Duxford I believe but was filmed in the Farnham area. Any ideas who’s this Thunderbolt was? First aired 21 Nov 1980.
Anyone else recall any further obscure warbirds appaearances on TV?
By: adrian_gray - 30th September 2004 at 17:41
Diana Rigg and her perfect undercarriage…
😀 No picture sadly, but an episode of The Avengers was filmed at Bovingdon, and in one scene Emma Peel is seen looking round the undercarriage of what surely can only be a Mosquito…
No mention of the ‘plane, but more on the episode at:
http://theavengers.tv/forever/peel1-9.htm
I also remember seeing on erman TV in 1994 a fairly dodgy american TV series called “Uncle Buck”, UB being a fat bloke with a beard that would have made WG Grace envious. Frankly it didn’t leave much impression, except a scene with him stood in the middle of a runway while someone taxis a P-51 (unmarked, I think) towards him, tail-up, “shooting” at him with lines of explosions going down the runway…
Presumably all faked, ‘cos the Mustang still had it’s prop and was the right way up! Might have made more impression had it had subtitles, or if I understood German…
Adrian
By: John Boyle - 30th September 2004 at 16:55
A couple of notes…Most of Fantasy Island was filmed in Los Angeles…the main “House” or whatever it was is part of a park. I don’t know where the lagoon is where the Grumman Wideon…I always thout it was a Goose, but it’s actually a Wideon (Gosling) retrofitted with radials. It was listed for sale awhile back and a lot of the guest stars signed the bulkhead.
Airwolf also shot down a Mustang in one episode.
The Bell 222 nwas operated by JetCopters of Van Nuys Airport but kept at the Bell Helicopter service center there. I went out looking for it and found it on the ramp. A quick word with the receptionist (and a quick flash of my military ID card) got me out on the ramp for photos. It was a fun show if …like most TV…you didn’t take it too seriously.
Bell provided a forward fuselage shell (or engineering mockup) to Universal to be modified into Airwolf standard for the cockpit shots. The helicopter itself was an early production 222 and all the mods were fiberglass bolt ons.
After the series ended the copter was de-modified and sold to a German firm where it was destroyed in a fatal crash.
Tallmantz Aviation out of Orange County provided the support planes for Black Sheep Squadron. In 1978 I payed a visit there and on their “Ops Board” they had scheduled flights for their J2F Duck, Stinson L-5 and (I think) a B-25 for the series. The Corsairs were provided by their various owners.
Side note: My brother in-law rented planes from an FBO at Van Nuys Airport and series star Robert Conrad was living in the firm’s parking lot in a huge motorhome while he was learning to fly…and going through a divorce.
Only in L.A.
RE: Highway to Heaven….I had a meeting with the staff at the USAF’s storage center at Davis-Monthan in Tucson and they told me about the “Highway to Heaven” filming there. It seems in the final scene the guy is dying and he supposedly goes to the base and takes a WWII surplus Mitchell. They flew one from Chino to Arizona for that scene wher it taxis past stored military jets. They said it was rather poignant….I’d like to see that episode. Fortunately, a job (and a life!) keeps me from watching too many reruns on cable.
An even more obsure film took place in part at D-M. In the 1972 TV film..
“The Delphi Bureau”, it’s opening scenes show all the stored B-58s (and other jets in a desert sunrise) waiting to be cut up. The film is about a crooked bureaucrat who manages to “steal” jets that he sells to the third world. The script names F-101s (hardly anything a third world country needed since most were interceptors) but they show an F-104 taking off. In a hangar, they show an F-84F being disassembled and hidden in grain shipments to go overseas.
By: DazDaMan - 30th September 2004 at 16:03
Oh, I got a BUNCH of these memorized…
Fantasy Island-fateuring a bunch of ‘Black Sheep Squadron’ footage, a guy gets into combat flying Corsairs and winds up meeting his father, or some silly thing like that…
Highway to Heaven-The old Michael Landon TV series, this particluar episode was filmed in Morro Bay, CA and actually showed the fishing boat I was living on at the time (filmed in 1986), the episode closed out with a guy making his trip to heaven on board a B-25.
Airwolf-remember when the Chopper in Airwolf fought a Corsair that was flown by the bad guy? The Corsair lost, of course…to a chopper that was 250 miles an hour slower…
I know I remember more…juts gotta jog the ol’ memory..
Mark
Airwolf rocked – if you were 8! 😀
By: DazDaMan - 30th September 2004 at 16:01
Less obscure – MH434 appearing in an episode of “Poirot” back in the late 80s, as “The Mayfield Kestrel”, a sorta top-secret fighter built for the Allies. Strafing trucks at West Malling, I think.
By: Corsair166b - 30th September 2004 at 15:58
Oh, I got a BUNCH of these memorized…
Fantasy Island-fateuring a bunch of ‘Black Sheep Squadron’ footage, a guy gets into combat flying Corsairs and winds up meeting his father, or some silly thing like that…
Highway to Heaven-The old Michael Landon TV series, this particluar episode was filmed in Morro Bay, CA and actually showed the fishing boat I was living on at the time (filmed in 1986), the episode closed out with a guy making his trip to heaven on board a B-25.
Airwolf-remember when the Chopper in Airwolf fought a Corsair that was flown by the bad guy? The Corsair lost, of course…to a chopper that was 250 miles an hour slower…
I know I remember more…juts gotta jog the ol’ memory..
Mark
By: Yak 11 Fan - 30th September 2004 at 08:47
That scheme sounds very like the Arnold machine, other than that I wasn’t aware that there was another Thunderbolt in the country at that time. TFC’s arrived late 85 early 86.
By: Will J - 30th September 2004 at 08:32
I was wasting time ‘channel surfing’ through music video channels the other day and stumbled across the one for ‘Writing to Reach You’ by Travis. It must have been released 1998/99 ish, which make is poigniant as it features what must be one of the last flights of ‘Me109’ G-BOML. It is seen ‘strafing’ the lead singer who is running along what looks like the grass at Duxford.
By: Dave Homewood - 30th September 2004 at 08:13
It was olive green with a white tail and blue(?) tip on the fin.
I was told that it was from Duxford because this is where Jimmy Perry, the series writer, told me he thought they’d got it from but he wasn’t too sure. Maybe it wasn’t DX-based.
By: Yak 11 Fan - 30th September 2004 at 08:07
If the Thunderbolt scene was aired in 1980 I would think this would be more likely to be Doug Arnold’s Thunderbolt which would at the time have been based in Hampshire. Was the P47 green?
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September 30, 2004 at 7:41 am