Aviation movies

[172driver]

I just watched Con Air on TV and it has to be the number one most stupid, unrealistic movie I've ever seen. Tuned in cause it had airplanes in it and was sorely disappointed, not that I expected much more.

It made me wonder though...are there many good aviation movies out there? Maybe some realistic aviation stuff? I know it doesn't sell well but maybe, just maybe somebody has produced something of quality...

 

[Counselair]

Excellent question sir! In proof, it has been rehashed over and over on this very board. Inquiry fufills me, past roads however, tire my soul...

Counselair

 

[jergar999]

My favorite scene in any aviation movie is in "Face Off" when John Travolta turns the yoke and the Lear turns on the ground. He of all people should know better.

 

[Typhoon1244]

The only one I've ever seen that stuck very close to reality was The High and the Mighty, a 1950's John Wayne/Robert Stack film based on the Ernest Gann novel.

A British movie called No Highway in the Sky with Jimmy Stewart is well done...it's loosely based on the investigation into the De Havilland Comet disasters. The Dam Busters, another British film, is also quite good at sticking to reality...an absolute must if you're into the Avro Lancaster.

Jimmy Stewart was pretty good at infusing a high degree of accuracy into the aviation movies he was associated with. Strategic Air Command is a good one, as is The Flight of the Phoenix...not much flying in that film, but it's still a teriffic movie. (The German kid has the best lines in ...Phoenix: "Mister Towns, you act as though stupidity were a virtue. Why is that?")

The original Airport with Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin is also a good one.

There aren't too many recent films that do a good job depicting aviation. As you said, realism doesn't sell, so we end up with crap like Firebirds and Con Air...both with Nicholas Cage, now that I think about it. Movies like Cast Away, U.S. Marshalls, and Executive Decision do well up to a point, then go astray: severed DC-10 engines that run under water, a 727 wing that slices through telephone poles like a hot knife through butter, an F-117 that holds fifteen passengers, etc.

There is one modern aviation film whose errors I can excuse because it's so beautifully filmed: Always with Richard Dreyfus, Holly Hunter, and John Goodman. The aerial sequences in that movie--both real and faked--will take your breath away.

One footnote: on the subject of aerospace, HBO's From the Earth to the Moon is exquisite in its faithfulness to reality. And if you need to see a "death-from-space" film, forget you ever heard about that turd Armageddon and get Deep Impact instead. Robert Duvall's performance will almost convince you he really was an astronaut!

 

[jergar999]

While on the topic, anyone care to speculate on the realism of the crash scene in Castaway?

 

[Chunk]

Great Airplane Movies....

The Great Waldo Pepper

The Right Stuff

ummm...lemme think some more

(anything played on Lifetime is definately out....they have more cheesy airplane movies. Usually with a female FO that saves everyone)

 

[PA28/C172 Flyer]

Iron Eagle How can you beat an opening scene where a 152 races a dirt bike, and narrowly wins. We all know the 152 isnt that fast.

Has anyone seen the B movie where this guy with a big chin builds a time machine out of a 172, and takes a reporter and investor into the post-apocalyptic future. They were pretty non-challant about the whole thing. I only saw the MST3000 version.

Typhoon is right, Flight of the Phoenix is great

 

[bozz66]

Funny you should bring this up. I just got done reading Barry Schiffs commentary on this subject in AOPA Pilot magazine. Great article.

Hollywood sure butchers the subject of aviation, but they'll go into excruciating detail and accuracy on the subject of robbing banks or plotting the perfect murder. The actors in these movies will spend months living in prisons with convicts or hang out with druggies on the streets, just to get the "FEEL" of what these people are like. When was the last time you heard of an actor doing this for the role of a pilot in a movie? I guess they feel they can just say "niner" or "roger" a few times and be convincing enough.

My favorites have got to be "The Right Stuff" and "Apollo 13". They were more about space travel rather than aviation but I thought they did a good job with both.

 

[dmspilot00]

I have to second Deep Impact. Someone got me Armageddon one year and I absolutely hated it. It was a disgustingly stupid movie. Then I was given Deep Impact and I actually liked it. As a matter of fact I watched both the other day because I was bored.

It is interesting to read user comments from the IMDB (imdb.com) on these movies. Most of the aviation movies I have seen were made for TV. I don't go to the cinema much.

I might make some people laugh with this comment, but I think the most realistically executed "airline disaster" movie was CBS's depiction of the Aloha flight which suffered an in-flight breakup of the fuselage (Miracle Landing). Although it had its cheesy moments, the dialog and sequence of events were pretty true to life and not dumbed down to make non-aviation people understand everything. As I understand it, CBS spent many months interviewing the passengers, crew, etc. in order to make this movie. I also like how the crew has flashbacks; the Flight Attendant remembering her dad telling her about a Vietnam War rescue mission (she then realizes she needs to start rescuing people), the Captain remembering a flight as an instructor in the military trying to get his student to concentrate on flying the airplane and not on the problem (he then realizes he should focus on flying the airplane), and the First Officer remembering one of her first solo landings in a crosswind in a C150 while she was a student (occurring while they were getting ready to land).

Two other truth-based aviation-disaster movies were about United 232 and the Canadian 767 that ran out of fuel. Both movies were network TV also, and were okay but not great. I don't think the United movie was very well executed, it is not that it had a lot of technical errors (they used actual dialog), but it was just boring the way they wrote it. The 767 movie had a pretty good script but with some technical errors and a few really bad scenes of a model airplane.

There was a half decent movie (fictional) called Blackout Effect from network TV (1998). It centers around an accident that occurs because there is a partial blackout on a center controller's scope, which causes a single data block to disappear from the screen. However everyone (except one investigator) believes that it was the controller's fault. The remainder of the plot turns to cover-ups and conspiracy as the truth is uncovered... faulty maintenance practices, etc.

Two other fictional movies, although less related to aviation but pretty good were from network TV also and called Pandora's Clock and Medusa's Child. Both were based on books by John J. Nance. Actually they were both very good. The former was about a deadly virus accidentally introduced to a 747 and the latter about a woman whose crazed ex-husband gets her to take a large crate onboard a cargo 737 (727 in the book) which turns out to be a nuclear weapon.

Now the ugly. There was some kind of fictional movie on ABC, maybe NBC. I don't remember the names, but the central character had the nickname "Lucky." Anyway, he and his wife are both pilots for the same airline, and they get a flight together. There happens to be a check pilot on this flight, which is aboard a fictional make and model airplane, and the check pilot has a fit because the captain doesn't want to fly the airplane with the computers (total opposite of what would probably happen, I know!!). Anyway, the main thing is something disasterious happened, I think the elevator jammed or something, and they depressurized the plane and filled a wheel well with water to change the CG, or something like that. It was dumb.

Now I have to share with you a movie from USA. Prepare yourselves. It was called On a Wing and a Prayer. Too bad I don't remember more about the movie, but I've blocked most of it from my memory because of how disturbingly stupid, pitiful, and absurd it was. The premise for the movie is a power outage at an ATC facility, occurring because leaky pipes drip water onto the power supplies. The controllers tried to rely on the paper flight strips, but when a controller has a heart attack he scatters them everywhere, with one falling under the baseboard and being lossed. The particular flight is left to fend for itself in a storm. On board the flight, the cockpit resembled nothing of an actual airplane, and both pilots (a man captain and woman first officer... both who they looked like they were taking a break from their minimum wage jobs to shoot this movie) flew the airplane at the same time, both steering the yokes and such, while relaxedly flying through one heck of a thunderstorm. "Don't worry, " says the captain, while lightning flashes through the windows, "it's nothing we can't handle." I believe at one point the wing gets struck by lightning and they lose several feet of it. Then the aircraft flies unknowingly into a holding pattern and risks collision. Meanwhile back on the ground some "dude" and his girlfriend get into a learjet and takeoff while listening to music instead of ATC, almost flying into the path of the troubled aircraft also. Finally, at the end of the move, while landing, the airplane (which was on fire) hydroplanes and performs some wild ground-based aerobatics.

I will have to check out that AOPA article. Barry Schiff is my favorite aviation author.

 

[jenga]

Top Eleven Point Five list

1. Iron Eagle III
2. Iron Eagle II
3. Iron Eagle ".......tim to die idon eegel!"
4. Con Air
5. Turbulence
6. Firebirds
7. Top Gun "........I am dangerous, Ice man..."
8. Terminal Velocity
9. Executive Decision
10. The Langoliers
11. Passenger 57 ".........always bet on black..."
11.5. Airport 79 & Airport77 (tied)

Seriously though, I always liked "Always". Some cheese but a great movie nonetheless.

" The great Santini" is great....... You'll find some cheddar in "Drop Zone" but a fun aviation and skydiving movie.

For some technically correct, quality viewing, may I suggest Jeppesen's "adverse weather"; or, "IFR enroute charts" is sort of on tap with the real aviation world.

P.S. sorry for the sarcasm. Thinking about the top 11.5 all time cheese flicks sparked something evil inside of me.....