XN923Beautiful shots! Lots of varied types and some unusual stuff. Plus seeing the MkXI Spit hopping over the hedge must have been worthwhile!
Mind if I ask what kit you were using?
XN923Awwww that is well over! Sooooperb! Wish I could have gone on the thursday & not Friday 🙁
Martin
That was the second one which wasn’t as far over as the first! What was the weather like on the Friday?
XN923would have gone but was at Cosford, wonder if this was planned so to get extra flypasts?
I believe this was the intention – the Aerostars flew over on their way there. I understand the Meteor & Vampire and The Blades were planning to put in an appearance but some rescheduling by Cosford meant they were going to be quite a bit later than originally thought. I had a long way to travel so left a little after the fast taxi, but I think the Blades definitely made it.
XN923A Spitfire came over my house on approach to Southampton airport earlier today (just before 3pm). Does anyone know which one and what it’s doing there?
XN923For the uninitiated (me), what is the time scale for changing two engines (assuming that has to happen)?
Don’t know about engine change, but as far as the timescales go the update yesterday said:
“Unfortunately, this means that she will not be able to fly for at least two weeks, although we will not know exactly how long rectification will take until the problem has been thoroughly investigated.”
558 really didn’t need any more bad luck – let’s hope it’s something easily rectified.
XN923Well two problems in a fortnight that has forced this aircraft to land. Is this an unfortunate coincidence or should those who inspect and regulate things think about taking a closer look at it? Yes I would like it to keep flying if possible and yes I have given money to the project in the past and have enjoyed seeing flying over my house. My concern is it is a big aircraft and old.
Don’t tell my it can’t crash or won’t crash because like any other aircraft it can. If it did it could cause a great deal of carnage and fatilities.So what that all boiles down to is I would like to see that aircraft thoroughly inspected by somebody super critical (CAA or who I don’t know) before it flies again.
Serviceability is already treated a lot more conservatively than it was when the aircraft was in service. The chances of it crashing are far smaller now than they were then. Sure it could crash – so could any of the multitude of airliners flying over the UK every minute of every day. Old aircraft? Big? So is PA474, but I don’t hear people yelling for that to be grounded every time it goes tech.
XN923Well two problems in a fortnight that has forced this aircraft to land. Is this an unfortunate coincidence or should those who inspect and regulate things think about taking a closer look at it? Yes I would like it to keep flying if possible and yes I have given money to the project in the past and have enjoyed seeing flying over my house. My concern is it is a big aircraft and old.
Don’t tell my it can’t crash or won’t crash because like any other aircraft it can. If it did it could cause a great deal of carnage and fatilities.So what that all boiles down to is I would like to see that aircraft thoroughly inspected by somebody super critical (CAA or who I don’t know) before it flies again.
Serviceability is already treated a lot more conservatively than it was when the aircraft was in service. The chances of it crashing are far smaller now than they were then. Sure it could crash – so could any of the multitude of airliners flying over the UK every minute of every day. Old aircraft? Big? So is PA474, but I don’t hear people yelling for that to be grounded every time it goes tech.
XN923I heard a rumour that Dark Blue World cost less to produce than the post film party and razmataz of Pearl Harbor:confused:
All things are relative – the train strafing sequence in Dark Blue World cost more than the director’s previous film (Kolya) cost in its entirety! That’s another good example of subtle use of CGI – the real pyrotechnics in the explosion were supplemented by CGI (I wouldn’t have known) and they also did things like add spent cartridge cases falling from the aircraft when guns were firing, that sort of thing.
XN923What are the odds, I just watched that about a month ago. Odd little film isn´t it? I think I need to watch it again, to see if I enjoyed it or not. Good flying though.
Another vaguely flying related anime that I watched was “The place promised in our early days”. That was very strange and I couldn´t even tell the characters apart. I´d avoid.
Yes, I was definitely left with a sense of needing to see it again, but I often get that with Japanese films. I did enjoy the flying, and the sense of wistfulness that hung over the story was well expressed, in a restrained kind of way. I dare say there are many many films about the young people who have to fight wars not of their making, and who don’t get to live in the world they are fighting for, but I thought it was done with great economy – a bit of a rarity in films these days IMO! Not bad for £1.99 from Forbidden Planet anyway.
I’ll steer clear of the other one then.
XN923It´ll get there eventually.:)
Let’s hope so. Spielberg had the sense (or found it necessary) to put most of his key dinosaur CGI scenes in poor light, rain, lightning etc, all mitigating to an extent the shortcomings of the CGI. I think many filmmakers could still learn from this. When it comes to creating extensive effects sequences using CGI, it would be well to consider Geoff Goldblum/Dr Malcolm’s words – “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
BTW, perhaps it’s easier to be impressed if you are watching a film that you know is animated from beginning to end. I’ve just seen ‘The Sky Crawlers’, a Japanese animation about a fictitious war in a world similar to ours, fought with highly developed piston-engined aircraft (themselves all fictional but clearly inspired by e.g. Northrop flying wings, Kyushu Shinden canards, that sort of thing). I found the flying sequences very impressive and the dynamics pretty good. As it was an animated film, the lack of real aircraft didn’t bother me in the slightest, and I was taken by the almost photo-real nature of the aircraft. Maybe I just have double standards. Anyway, I can recommend The Sky Crawlers, it’s a thought-provoking little piece.
XN923Clearly it works best when combined with real aircraft. The comparison I was making however was with models on strings, or indeed any other special effect that you care to name. Real aircraft give you a perfect baseline of what looks real on film (because it is real) on which you can base your models.
And as bad as CGI can be, it is invariably less noticeable and risible than models on strings. To pick specific examples, it is the only remotely realistic way to put a hundred B-17s on the cinema screen. It is the only way to “blow up” an aircraft that doesn´t look utterly unconvincing. If it isn´t the best or only way to do these kinds of things, then I´m all ears to hear what is?
One problem I have experienced with films such as Flyboys seems to be that in order that the CGI sequences don’t look out of place, the sequences with real aircraft or models are dressed up to resemble the animation. The physics may be right in that respect, but the ‘texture’ still appears animated so it’s hard to tell what’s real an what isn’t – and not in a good way. Much of the Red Tails trailer looks this way to me. There may be real aircraft in there, but as far as I can see they all look like computer models.
BTW CGI is not the only way to get a sky full of B-17s – digital compositing would be as good or probably better. Look at e.g. Kingdom of Heaven, there was one real siege tower built, the others were ‘cut and pasted’ versions of the same one. Or model work. Or a bit of both.
XN923😮
Now, now – you can´t knock the man for not at least aspiring to lofty heights, even if the end result was…ahem…less than stellar.:D
Curiously it did good box office too, in spite of almost universally damningly bad reviews.I don´t know where you´d even start today to try and make anything of the same quality and feel of A Matter of Life and Death. What a superb film that is, though I think it´s very much a product of its time
I don’t believe Bay did aspire to that – or at least if he did, he lacked the first notion of how to do it. He seems to think that making the film more than three hours long, in widescreen with very expensive visuals, about a tragic love story against a backdrop of war would be all that was necessary. He is of course no David Lean. PH even made Titanic look like high art.
I would perhaps have minded less if the Pearl Harbour sequence was done well, but it wasn’t. The money that was chucked at the effects sequences was used to make them visually mind-blowing to the ignorant, not to actually replicate what happened in a way that was not possible with the technology in earlier films.
Ah, A Matter Of Life And Death. I think I may watch that again instead of Red Tails. We tend to forget now just how good films from that era can be. On a whim my wife and I watched Kind Hearts and Coronets recently and loved it. The script, dialogue, acting, tone etc are all done to an absolute tee. It’s a perfectly crafted jewel of a film. For all the basically OK films there are out there now, we have completely lost the ability to make films with that sparkle any more, and will probably never get it back.
‘I shot an arrow in the air. She fell to earth in Berkely Square’
XN923Pearl Harbor is absolutely no worse than the vast majority of cheesey War movies made during and after the conflict. Not sure why it gets singled out for particular abuse so often.
Possibly because it is mind-crushingly terrible in every respect. The script was appalling, the acting utterly hammy, the dialogue laughable, the plotting embarrassing (tricky love triangle? Just kill the less A-list main character and go home happy!), the ‘characters’ 0-dimensional, the treatment of history insulting (Jimmy Doolittle rendered as a ranting bully, war weary Brits need square-jawed yank to win Battle of Britain, nose fused 250lb bomb penetrates magazine and blows up after a dramatic pause), everything about the flying is wrong (P-40s performing like an F-16 on rails, and I’m sorry, but any pilot who declares ‘you don’t need instruments, you have to fly by the seat of your pants’ is going to kill himself the first time he tries flying at night), filled with moments of sheer laziness (how many WW2 era ships are preserved in the US? So why do we have to see 21st century destroyers and a nuclear carrier?) – and the feeling from beginning to end that our intelligence is being shat upon. We do not have to put up with this.
‘No worse than the vast majority of cheesy war movies’ is hardly a glowing accolade though, anyway. Especially when you consider that these were flag wavers made quickly and cheaply for the chief purpose of keeping the morale of the population up, not to make ‘another Gone With The Wind or Dr Zhivago’ as Michael Bay claimed his intention was.
The war and the period afterwards gave us films like Appointment in London, Memphis Belle, One of Our Aircraft is Missing, The Cruel Sea, Angels One-Five, Malta Story, A Matter of Life And Death, Sink the Bismarck, Battleground, The Way to The Stars… I wish film makers would aspire to making films as good as these, not merely ‘no worse than the vast majority of cheesy war war movies.
XN923You want a documentary, essentially, and Lucas has made a drama. No law against that.
Most of Shakespeare was “inspired by true events.”
Any interpretation of any art, be it painting, theatre, cinema etc, that takes inspiration from history will invariably tell you far more about the time in which it was made than the time it seeks to portray. Shakespeare’s ‘histories’ tell us what late Elizabethan/early Stuart people thought about their own history – not to mention the fact that Shakespeare was in many cases writing the plays for rulers who were themselves the descendents of those depicted, with all the attendant difficulties of that tricky gig.
I suspect that future historians looking at the likes of Pearl Harbor will come to the conclusion that people of the early 21st century were, in the main, idiots with an attention-span of ten seconds and a deep-seated desire to be patronised, manipulated and prevented from thinking at all costs. I hope the same cannot be said of Red Tails – I will reserve judgement until I see it.
XN923I will respectfully disagree on the potential usefulness of the carriers – only to say they could have been an awful lot more useful if the procurement had not been so tortuous (and if we weren’t sticking with the expensive and over complex F-35 rather than buying more of something good enough and cheaper – to my mind Super Hornet, Rafale, Sea Gripen and Tejas would all give us a lot more bang for buck and still do exactly what we need them to – but I’m sure someone will tell me why I am wrong).
A couple of points about the 1970s… I understood that the decision was not ‘we don’t need any carriers’ but ‘we can get by with the existing ones’. This gave us fewer aircraft and a shorter lifespan but still gave us the Buccs and Phantoms we needed on a lower budget.
Of course there was a swift, partial backtracking and Eagle wasn’t upgraded, much as we have now with PoW and QE, one of which will be mothballed or sold. Without Ark Royal the preventative mission over British Honduras could not have been staged.
I agree Falklands could have been prevented – but the best way to do that was exactly as we did with BH, by sending a carrier when it looked like Argentina was sabre rattling. IIRC the sale of Invincible to Australia was a factor in Argentina’s decision to invade? (Of course, Jim Callaghan averted an earlier invasion by sending HMS Bristol I think it was to the South Atlantic, but that’s another story)
In other words, a carrier is a far better deterrent to the kind of situations we see today than a sub full of nukes. And for practical usage, we’re far more likely to encounter another Beira patrol than Dr Strangelove for real – aren’t we?
I’ll buy your book Chox 😎 – you talk sense about the Vulcan even if we disagree about carriers. I might need an ISBN though.
Sign In
