On filming Empire of the Sun – by Mark Hanna

Mark wrote many articles about aircraft he flew, WW 18 is obviously my fave as he writes about flying the ex Black Knight T-33. After he died I e-mailed S Conner who had recorded lots of interviews with Mark as well as having him talk over in-cockpit cams & release it all on DVD.

I came across the youtube vid of Mark describing his Hunter display, he would have made a superb instructor.

PS…..I’m saving the article to read at the weekend, many thanks for posting it up!

James, I’m sure that there would be great interest in any articles written by Mark.

Mark wrote many articles about aircraft he flew, WW 18 is obviously my fave as he writes about flying the ex Black Knight T-33. After he died I e-mailed S Conner who had recorded lots of interviews with Mark as well as having him talk over in-cockpit cams & release it all on DVD.

Now there is a Pilot , Mark Hanna was the best display Pilot i have ever seen at the show,s ,sadly missed , being a Radio HAM ,I was talking to Alan Morriss on his Lancaster Bomber Radio ,he is on the Air every Saturday Morning on the 80m band talking to other radio hams some using t1154 , others use the ART13 on 3.615 mhz AM mode ,and he told me he did some of the Display Flying in The Empire of The Sun , its a real shame Mark is no longer with us .

Some big flyable Mustang models were built by a colleague of mine for the film,
so some shots will be models.

Graham

Fantastic read and thanks for rejuevenating the article James, great to see a pilot writing about his experiences so well. I’m sure it will be worth putting up more article by Mark Hanna!

No problem. As to ‘more’, I’d like to see that too, but there needs to be expressed interest.

Had a look at the youtube clip, I might be an old stick in the mud, but surely CGI can not ever hope to ape such sequences.

Without re-heating the old debate, it could, but the temptation to over do it with CGI seems pretty irresistible.

However it’s also worth noting that while the flying is ‘real’, and the special effects broadly believable (see MythBusters on ‘gasoline’ type explosions) it’s specifically notable that Mark states they dropped the speeds to 200-250 kts for filming – I would imagine that a real strafing attack would normally be at something between a high cruise and top speed at ground level – i.e. about 350 – 400 mph, or 300- 350 kts. In other words the Mustangs would be travelling 1/3 faster in reality – and a good strafing attack was one hit and thus over in a few seconds; certainly not time to, say, run up the stairs!

But it’s all pretty impressive, anyway, and it’s real flying and real low, by (as Black Knight’s touched on) real pilots.

Regards,

Fantastic read and thanks for rejuevenating the article James, great to see a pilot writing about his experiences so well. I’m sure it will be worth putting up more article by Mark Hanna!
Had a look at the youtube clip, I might be an old stick in the mud, but surely CGI can not ever hope to ape such sequences.

I have the entire collection from the mags & special editions to the directories & the patch. Wish someone couldve carried it on.

Please do! The footage is all over You tube like a rash, but you won’t read the account of how it’s done elsewhere (unless you have a copy of Warbirds Worldwide 2).

Regards,

I do amazingly still have that!

As far as I’m concerned probably 3 of the most important names in aviation mentioned here. All much missed & nothing to compare with now. R.I.P all.

Thanks a lot for this. Empire Of The Sun is one of my favourite films of all time. Posting to return and read later/tomorrow. 😎

Pleasure. I’m glad it was of interest, as it was more of a fiddle cleaning up the scan text and trying to get the best out of the pics than I’d expected. However thanks must go to the late Mark Hanna and Paul Coggan for making the original article, and Sarah Hanna for permission to reproduce it.

If there’s enough interest, it could be good to have a look again at others by Mark – I can think of two or three articles that it would be good to see again.

This was an era of big budget flying films, and OFMC seemed to be involved with most of them! Air America, Piece of Cake, Memphis Belle come to mind, but CGI seems to have changed the landscape for good ( and usually not that good 😡 )

I agree. In hindsignt, given the mix of real aircraft, budget and efforts towards authenticity, it’s probably not unreasonable to put the 1980s down as a ‘golden age’ of aviation films. Recently only Amelia seems to have hit the ‘real aeroplane [airplane!]’ buttons, and sadly, despite the quality of the aeronautics, hasn’t done well. Worth a look if you’ve not seen it though!

At 1.05 there is a 16 second sequence with not cuts, involving two attack runs and perfectly timed explosion of very expensive prop ( hangar) , and faultless stafing effects. Well crafted or what !

Mark discusses how that shot’s structured in the article.

Regards,

That was a great read…. thank you for putting it on there 😉

Will definitely check out your blog:)

Please do! The footage is all over You tube like a rash, but you won’t read the account of how it’s done elsewhere (unless you have a copy of Warbirds Worldwide 2).

Regards,

Fantastic stuff. Empire of the Sun is a good film all-round, but that Mustang sequence takes some beating.

Attack scene here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02BBtN-P0lc

This was an era of big budget flying films, and OFMC seemed to be involved with most of them! Air America, Piece of Cake, Memphis Belle come to mind, but CGI seems to have changed the landscape for good ( and usually not that good 😡 )

At 1.05 there is a 16 second sequence with not cuts, involving two attack runs and perfectly timed explosion of very expensive prop ( hangar) , and faultless stafing effects. Well crafted or what !

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the film, but seemed to remember that the Mustang sequences were the most terrific warbird scenes, visually and soundwise, that I’ve seen in a film.

Will definitely check out your blog:)