Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#21 Post by G~Man » Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:18 pm

Ex-military airplanes in this......clearly I work fires....


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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#22 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Nov 12, 2019 2:30 am

G~Man wrote:
Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:18 pm
clearly I work fires....

A helicopter pilot though surely?
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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#23 Post by G~Man » Tue Nov 12, 2019 5:02 pm

TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Tue Nov 12, 2019 2:30 am
G~Man wrote:
Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:18 pm
clearly I work fires....
A helicopter pilot though surely?
Indeedy:
B-) Life may not be the party you hoped for, but while you're here, you may as well dance. B-)

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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#24 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Nov 13, 2019 11:25 pm

You heli men are teaching us lesser flying mortals how to fly.
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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#25 Post by Pontius Navigator » Thu Nov 14, 2019 5:04 pm

John Mills, The Way to Stars, 1945. Immediate post-war but good uniforms, sadly I recognised some of the Mess furniture. The Yanks were all caricatures from the time. Some brilliant lines. I liked the way that John Mills and Trevor Howard got promoted through the story, Mills rising from fg off to sqn ldr.

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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#26 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:30 pm

Slasher wrote:
Sat Nov 09, 2019 10:28 am
Gob I’m certain you’d be interested in this book:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/288 ... er-vietnam

In it Trotti described how he and his group would soften up the target defenses by strafe and strategic bombing, and had to get the hell out before the Thunderchiefs came screaming in and really blew the absolute total living sh!t out of everything. They didn’t care who was in their way.

I can’t find my copy (buried in a pile of books somewhere) but it’s a damn good read.
I read this book cover to cover in an orgy of sloth today. Excellent save for the very last page where Trotti says the following which is a long held canard to my knowledge...
Many Vietnam veterans still think of Jane Fonda as the vilest of creatures of the period, but subsequent revelations have demoted her to a less prestigious position behind Dean Rusk, (Secretary of State from 1961 to January 20, 1969 under President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson) and Robert Strange McNamara [Secretary of Defense from 1961], both of whom made confessions of actions bordering on malfeasance and perhaps in the case of Rusk, treason. From his The Secret War and Other Conflicts, General Pete Piotrowski reported (on pages 246/ 247) "Nearly twenty years later, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk being interviewed by Peter Arnett on a CBC documentary called "The Ten Thousand Day War". Mr. Arnett asked, "It has been rumored that the United States provided the North Vietnamese government the names of the targets that would be bombed the following day. Is there any truth to that allegation?" To everyone's astonishment and absolute disgust, the former Secretary responded, "Yes. We didn't want to harm the North Vietnamese people, so we passed the targets to the Swiss embassy in Washington with instructions to pass them to the NVN government through their embassy in Hanoi." As we watched in horror, Secretary Rusk went on to say, "All we wanted to do is demonstrate to the North Vietnamese leadership that we could strike targets at will, but we didn't want to kill innocent people. By giving the North Vietnamese advanced warning of the targets to be attacked, we thought they would tell the workers to stay home." The NVN obviously moved as many guns as they could overnight to better defend each target they knew was going to be attacked. Clearly, many brave American Air Force and Navy fliers died or spent years in NVN prison camps as a direct result of being intentionally betrayed by Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara, and perhaps, President Johnson himself. I cannot think of a more duplicitous and treacherous act of American government officials.
Piotrowski quoted this totally out of context and maybe history and the mangled internet has distorted the truth even more, to the point where Mr Rusk's name is probably impugned.

While the USA was fighting a covert war, think Air America (circa early 1964) and when US "advisers" were the 'only' actors in the war, allegedly, Rusk admitted that in order to warn the North they made a series of raids (pre-warned) to show how weak the North's position before US troops (and the Marine Aviators and USAF) were officially deployed. Thereafter this was never a policy and, in fact, Dean Rusk was vilified during the war by the anti-war lobby (including Jane Fonda) for being one of the war's architects.

You can't have it both ways Major Trotti.

Only the other criticism of the book is the appalling sub-editorial standards and typos e.g. RAT - Rain Air Turbine etc. (tut, tut..).

Thanks for recommending Captain, excellent nonetheless!
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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#27 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sun Nov 17, 2019 8:56 am

TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Sat Nov 09, 2019 12:02 pm
ian16th wrote:
Sat Nov 09, 2019 11:03 am
A not so good one!
In the same vein... inaccurate but still very watchable and enjoyable...

I mentioned unwitting evidence before and noticed one striking example here.

Ray Millard played the part of OC Ops at Cranwell. Now I was taught that Operations Wing was part of the new Binbrook system of 3 wings, Ops, Eng and Admin. Ops Wg replaced Flying Wg. Now this was 'new' in 1962.

At Hullavington, a 25 Gp Flying Training Command station, we still had Flying Wing and Technical Wing though I think they were only a sqn. The film clearly shows that Cranwell, a 23 Gp station I think, had an Ops Wg at least by 1958.

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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#28 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:51 am

Interesting detail PN and, with respect, shows the deep level of knowledge of these matters that can be found amongst posters like yourself on this excellent site.

Reading up on the history of the film High Flight I see it was filmed with active RAF co-operation and that many of the flying scenes come from actual footage at Farnborough.
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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#29 Post by Alisoncc » Mon Nov 18, 2019 7:35 am

Started off with one of those American things, so here's a real Bomber. The famous howl starts 48 seconds in. Scared the Soviets sh*tless. :D




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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#30 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Nov 19, 2019 5:37 pm

Alisoncc wrote:
Mon Nov 18, 2019 7:35 am
Started off with one of those American things, so here's a real Bomber. The famous howl starts 48 seconds in. Scared the Soviets sh*tless. :D

Alison (Who has experienced the Howl from the QRA pans from multiple consecutive aircraft.)
I have only had the pleasure of seeing a Vulcan in the air once and it was a truly memorable sound and occasion. It was certainly a stunning sounding and looking aircraft that looked like it might handle like a fighter (although the aircraft I saw was being flown very conservatively to extend its fatigue life).
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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#31 Post by ricardian » Tue Nov 19, 2019 6:01 pm

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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#32 Post by ricardian » Tue Nov 19, 2019 6:06 pm

Battle for the skies
All about the V-force
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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#33 Post by Pontius Navigator » Tue Nov 19, 2019 6:57 pm

Alisoncc wrote:
Mon Nov 18, 2019 7:35 am
Started off with one of those American things, so here's a real Bomber. The famous howl starts 48 seconds in. Scared the Soviets sh*tless. :D


Alison (Who has experienced the Howl from the QRA pans from multiple consecutive aircraft.)
Loved the way the camera man missed the take-off. Same thing happened at Butterworth. Air Traffic was so used to the Victor 1 just tipping the overshoot on the 8,000 ft runway they missed us climbing away at 4,500 ft.

There was a similar camera miss at the Cottesmore airshow, '65 or '66. The Lightning disappeared behind the Gin Palace and reappeared momentum later climbing vertically. An RF4C crew said they were planning a snappy departure but scraped the idea when they saw that.

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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#34 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Nov 19, 2019 9:03 pm

Though you remain
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You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#35 Post by ian16th » Wed Nov 20, 2019 9:43 am

The big question about the P-38 is, how good would it have been if it was fitted with RR Merlins?

Apparently, Hap Arnold sent one to RR for fitting and trials, when Allison heard about it, there was much lobbying in Washington, as Allison (General Motors in those days) could see the end of their aircraft engine production.
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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#36 Post by llondel » Wed Nov 20, 2019 7:50 pm

ian16th wrote:
Wed Nov 20, 2019 9:43 am
The big question about the P-38 is, how good would it have been if it was fitted with RR Merlins?

Apparently, Hap Arnold sent one to RR for fitting and trials, when Allison heard about it, there was much lobbying in Washington, as Allison (General Motors in those days) could see the end of their aircraft engine production.
Wasn't it the P-51 Mustang that was transformed from a mediocre aircraft to a serious fighter plane when they swapped the Allison engine for a Merlin?

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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#37 Post by ian16th » Wed Nov 20, 2019 8:05 pm

llondel wrote:
Wed Nov 20, 2019 7:50 pm
ian16th wrote:
Wed Nov 20, 2019 9:43 am
The big question about the P-38 is, how good would it have been if it was fitted with RR Merlins?

Apparently, Hap Arnold sent one to RR for fitting and trials, when Allison heard about it, there was much lobbying in Washington, as Allison (General Motors in those days) could see the end of their aircraft engine production.
Wasn't it the P-51 Mustang that was transformed from a mediocre aircraft to a serious fighter plane when they swapped the Allison engine for a Merlin?
That was the whole point!
The P-38 used the same Allison donks as the P-51.
The improvement would have been times 2!
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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#38 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Dec 01, 2019 12:18 pm

I read my first Nevil Shute Novel 'No Highway' at the age of 6, much to my mother's surprise and delight, she having taught me to read by the time I was 5. I was forced to ask an infinity of questions like "what is metal fatigue mom etc. etc." and she patiently answered or looked the answers up, often using our collection of Encyclopedia Britannica and never once lost her temper or patience with me. All the while I was reading his novel it never that struck me that Mr Shute was anything but alive, some children not having a sense of the ineffable vacuum that is death or the concept of non-existence prior to their own births. I was later surprised to discover that Mr Shute had died some 6 years before I read his novel as a sprog.

Anyway it has been some 50 years since I last read a Nevil Shut novel although I knew he was an aeronautical engineer and had been a senior engineer working on the R101 airship but was interested to read yesterday that after the airship disaster he became a director with the Airspeed aircraft company and have started reading his autobiography 'Slide Rule'. I am still reading but what a fascinating read. Much recommended.
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Re: Good aviation nostalgia film/documentaries

#39 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Dec 01, 2019 1:21 pm

No Highway was pretty prescient given that it came out in 1948, before the travails of the Comet jet airliner... must reread...

https://www.nevilshute.org/Reviews/highway.php

PS - The Shute autobiography is military nostalgia in the sense that it covers his history during the 1916 uprising in Dublin, plus his brother's tragic death as an officer in France as well as his failure to become a commissioned officer in the RAF and his later career, during the Second World War as a senior Naval Officer. Fascinating guy with a great love for aviation,
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Your destination remains
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#40 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Dec 04, 2019 4:07 pm

Still reading Nevil Shute's autobiography Slide Rule and his description of the female casual labourers engaged in sewing the fabric or as riveters during the development of the R100 airship had me in stitches (ahem)...
We employed a large percentage of our labour in the form of local lads and girls straight off the farms as unskilled labour, training them to do simple riveting and mass production work. The lads were what one would expect, straight from the plough, but the girls were an eye-opener. They were brutish and uncouth, filthy in appearance and in habits. Things may have changed since then—I hope they have. Perhaps the girls in very isolated rural districts such as that had less opportunity than their brothers for getting in to the market town and making contact with civilisation; I can only record the fact that these girls straight off the farms were the lowest types that I have ever seen in England, and incredibly foul-mouthed. We very soon found that we had to employ a welfare worker to look after them because promiscuous intercourse was going on merrily in every dark corner, and we picked a middle-aged local woman thinking that she would know how to deal with problems that we had not contemplated when we started in to build an airship. But the experiment was not a success. I forget how we solved the problem; probably we never did, because as the job approached completion the need for unskilled female labour was reduced and we were able to get rid of the most jungly types.
Jungly types!

=))

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Your destination remains
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