Don’t forget Dark Blue World, I’m sure there was a huge gothic mansion in the airfield there as well.

Perhaps the RAF is run along feudal lines.

Going back to the excerable Pearl Harbor and the aforementioned, admittedly impressive (the first time, after that it’s just gimmicky), shot of the bomb hitting the Arizona and a point of accuracy – the bomb that lands in the magazine looks to be no bigger than about 250lb – would it be possible for a little device like this to have plunged neatly through the armoured deck of a capital ship and into the heart of the most well protected part of the vessel?

This is what/who I was doing whilst you were all watching that drivel…

The one on the left btw…

Hmm. 7/10

i hate this film, there was potential for a remake or tora tora tora but instead they stick some stupid slushy love story in it!!! thank god desperte housewives was on !!

Of course, part of the reason the FX in Tora! Tora! Tora! were so good is that half of them were set-ups that went so badly wrong that real aircraft really crashed into other real aircraft (or at least mock-ups), there were genuine wheels-up landings and in several cases, the ‘ground crew’ seen ‘running for their lives’ from explosions and collisions were actually film crew running for their lives from explosions and collisions.

You can’t make a CGI Val run into a miniature P40 by mistake as far as I understand it.

And it’s not even a good slushy love story! The writers have got themselves in such a knot by the end that the audience is allowed to feel relieved that Josh Hartnet’s character (sorry, ‘character’) has died and removed any worry about future paternity suits and the unfortunate child growing up with ‘I have one mummy but two daddies’ stories at school.

Utterly virtue-free tosh.

Well, I switched on the television at about nine and watched until the break for the news. Even cutting out the crappy love triangle stuff and getting to the nub of the action, this was a strangely empty experience. Watch! as darstadly ‘Jap Suckers’ (yes, I’m sure that’s what the Americans called them) machine gun nurses. Marvel! As the P40 synchro-pair team defeat droves of Zeroes. Applaud! as cartoon aircraft attack cartoon ships. Weep! As murdered American sailors float in the clear blue water next to a bullet-riddled stars’n’stripes.

Funniest was Cuba Gooding Jr. machine-gunning his own comrades (my wife: ‘Isn’t he shooting at the other ship and missing the planes by miles?’ The film ‘BOOOOM!!!!’) and possibly a close second was Michael Bay raiding the creative-piggy-bank of every director since Eisenstein (washed out colours and jumpy hand-held work straight from Saving Private Ryan, Slo-mo sequences lifted badly from Battleship Potemkin (or more likely The Untouchables), even cine-camera footage ripped off from The Blair Witch Project. And again, that music cranks in (Audience, you are now instructed to feel ). I could have vomited if I felt this abortion deserved the effort.

So I have chew the pillow and try not to scream

Is that before or during?

Botha
Indeed, ‘allegedly’. It’s one of those quotes that’s been attributed to a number of similar aircraft over the years. A dreadful aircraft anyway one cuts it.

Interestingly, Putnam’s ‘Blackburn Aircraft Since 1919’ makes no reference of the dreadful nature of the Botha, but devotes considerable space to the controversy over the pronounciation of the name and mutters darkly about how Blackburn’s could not get hold of any Bristol Taurus engines because Bristol nicked them all for the Beaufort.

Is it time for a ‘too bad to be forgotten’ thread? Or perhaps a ‘really bad Blackburn aircraft’ thread?

Well at least there is one left and it will be looked after for generations to come

Sadly unrepresentative of the production model, but at least its better than the surviving Blackburn Firebrand (or lack thereof).

I’ve seen pictures of the FAAM example painted in a spurious scheme of Extra Dark Sea Grey/Sky which no TF1 ever carried while being tested, so the FAAM restored this example to the original bare metal. Although some examples of this type carried roundels and serials, they were all unpainted.