What is the best aviation movie?

[Sonny Crockett]

For real flying.....CLOUD DANCER, 1979 David Carridine, Pitts Specials lots of Aerobatic clips!

 

[BEfly]

#1 Airplane..............hands down
#2 Air America
#3 Blue Max
#4 Flight of the Intruder
#5 Top Gun
#6 Fandango
#7 Final Countdown
#8 The Right Stuff
#9 The Langoliers (Love that L1011)
#10 Firefox


If you guys haven't seen any of these, buy em on amazon for 3 bucks.

 

[Col Reb]

Midway. My dad took me to see it when I was 4, and I wanted to be a pilot ever since.

Close seconds:
Battle of Britain.
Bridges at Toko Ri.

 

[lowtimedriver]

I've read a couple of Dale Brown's books. After the first, I was convinced he was incapable of writing decent aviation fiction. I gave him a second chance, and affirmed my conviction. Pure hogwash.

Delusions of Buff grandeur.

Well it is fiction ya know. Flight of the Old Dog was an execellent read IMO.

 

[TurboJetCpt]

Without a doubt the best Aviation movie ever made was "300."

 

[retired guy]

An 8 episode series about a fictional squadron (Hornet Squadron) in the days just prior to the British being run out of France, then stationed around Dover. Great scenes of Spitfires...must have rounded up every flyable Spitfire in Europe to make this series. Actually no Spits were stationed in France, several Hurricane squadrons were, however. It`s on disc..got my copy on line. It`s called "A Piece of Cake"

 

[Col Reb]

Retired Guy, "A Piece of Cake" was definitely a great show. Did they really fly a Spit under the stone bridge? It looks real to me.

 

[Pull To Guns]

A couple more of Jimmy Stewart movies come to mind:
"The Spirit of St. Louis" in which Stewart portrays Charles Lindberg in his epic flight.

"No Highway in the Sky" As an aerodynamic engineer in early 1950's Great Britain, Stewart's character tries to warn a commercial aircraft maker of impending catastrophic failure (due to metal fatigue) of the company's revolutionary new airliner design that featured dual horizontal stabilizers.

The movie eerily portends the troubles had by the DeHavilland Comet in the early 60's with metal fatigue.

"Top Gun" in an insult to Naval Aviators everywhere despite some good flying footage.

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

Piece of Cake, was a great series/movie. I remember at the end of the show Allistar Cooke (sp?), the PBS host, stated that some of the old timers were miffed at the display of the "excessive" characters. Moggie's character comes to mind.
Ret. Guy, all the books I have read there were no Spits in France. I speculate there are more flying Spits when the movie was made than Hurricanes - also the Spit is much sexier for the cameras than the old cart horse Cane.

 

[belchfire]

I was sure glad to see that someone mentioned The Blue Max...but they forgot to mention Ursula Andress.

What the hell is this place coming to???

There were some good movies about British flying too. Dam Busters, Suicide of the 731st (don't know if the number is correct), Battle of Britain...

There was a Korean War era movie about early jets in Naval Aviation but I don't recall the title that was pretty good. Almost a prequel to Flight of the Intruder...