I read years ago that replicas of a Wellington and Mosquito would be created for the film. But why do they need a Hurricane? What has that got to do with the “Dambusters” story?

Colin

Possibly as set dressing as some of the test flights flown from RAF Manston for the test drops at Reculver. Were Hurricanes based there?

Martin

My favourite aviation films are –

WWII –

Angels One Five – ‘Septic’ kinda reminds me of me a little

Reach for the Sky – Kenneth More at his best

The Dam Busters – good story and an hour of Lancaster Porn

633 Squadron/Mosquito Squadron – Mosquito porn despite the fact they deliberately destroyed a perfectly good aeroplane 😡

First of the Few – Birth of the Spitfire

Battle of Britain – I thought the ‘He111s’/CASA 2111s looked like they suited Merlins very well. The Buchons just looked odd with theirs.

Tora! Tora! Tora! – Better version than Pearl Harbor (although I enjoyed that too)

Modern –

Top Gun – Plot aside, great flying sequences

Wings of the Apache/Firebirds – Top Gun variation but using eggbeaters with attitude

Flight of the Intruder – as discussed

Final Countdown – Different

Firefox – Wish they would have made the sequel

Bat21 – Good Gene Hackman film

Always – Good fire bomber action, humour and Holly Hunter

Worst –

Iron Eagle – Not one of Louis Gossett Jrs better choices post Officer and a Gentleman and he went back for more!

Mayday – Based (loosely) on the Thomas H Block book with Dean Cain (TVs Superman series) and Charles S Dutton (Alien 3) but could have done a whole lot better job with it. Chunks the size of the Pacific missing from the book. Waste of good talent.

Blue Thunder – would rather watch paint dry Airwolf is much better

Martin

if rolling in mud is effective,how come hippos are so big ?

The same could be said of swimming. If it is such good exercise then why are whales so fat?!

The Bell 222 is a beautiful machine….even in its Airwolf guise.
In 1984 I was visiting LA. On on a hunch I went to Van Nuys airport to the Bell Helicopter distributor. Parked out on the ramp was Airwolf it was in for maintenance from its owner, Jetcopters, which was also based on the field. One Bell employee had a car with the personal numberplate “Bell222”.
I did take away some neat sales brochures for the 222 and a options list with pricing.

I sweet talked them into letting me out on the locked ramp and took a few shots. The dark paint and overcast sky made for less than great shots, but somewhere I have a 9 by 11 print (still have the large format negative), but the framed poster I had printed of it hangs in my garage…

Still, given a choice, I’d rather watch Whirlybirds….
The Bell 47…now that’s a helicopter!

Sadly, Airwolf never featured a 47. The only vintage helicopter I recall seeing was a Garrett turbine conversion of a S-55.

Would love to see those pics sometime. I used to watch Airwolf avidly as a youngster

The S55 was in the episode Day of the Jackal and guest starred a very young Shannen Doherty from ‘Charmed’ and ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ Shannen was aslo nominated for a best actress award by the Young Artist Foundation

Martin

Wild Blue by Stephen E Ambrose who wrote ‘Band of Brothers’.

It follows a B24 crew of the 741st Bomb Squadron in Europe in WWII

Martin

From Pirates of the Carribean

Barbossa: “You better start believin in ghost stories Miss Turner. You’re in one!”

Martin

Sigourney Weaver, Alien series:
“I don’t know which species is worse. You don’t see them *******each other over for a ******* percentage.”
“You can’t stop it. It’s inevitable.”

Bill Paxton’s “knives, nukes” speech in the Director’s Cut of Aliens. Pure hilarity.

Also from ‘Aliens’

Bill Paxton (Hudson): “Hey Vasquez, Have you ever been mistaken for a man?”
Jeanette Goldstein (Vasquez): “No, have you?”

Drake: They ain’t paying us enough for this, man.
Dietrich: Not enough to have to wake up to your face, Drake.
Drake: What? Is that a joke?
Dietrich: Oh, I wish it were.

A facehugger trapped in a stasis tube tries unsuccessfully to attack Burke
Hicks: Looks like love at first sight to me. Oh, he likes you, Burke!

Bishop: In nineteen minutes, this area’s gonna be a cloud of vapour the size of Nebraska.

Martin