Your favourite aviation movie?

[Webmaster]

No, that was the MiG-25P's Smerch-A1 (NATO FOX FIRE  ), of ten years earlier. But!

However, many microwave engineers insist even now that vacuum-tube technology is perfectly practical and cost-effective for high-power microwave applications

By 1979, the MiG-25PD came about using a version of the MiG-23's Saphir-23 radar, using transisters and pulse-Doppler operation to provide a look-down / shoot-down capability. The -PD is the one that went abroad. But probably quite downgraded, as the Soviets did with many exports to Arab countries.

The MiG-31's Zaslon was actually the first electronically scanned phased array radar to enter service in the world. It's passive, so more like the PESA than the AESA, and pretty old by now for comparison, but in a way ahead of its time.

The movie is based on a novel of 1977, 5 years before the Foxhound became known to the West. The movie actually first wanted to use a Viggen (denied by Swedish government), later cover artwork depicted a MiG-25 version (close one), but I guess this wasn't enough "hollywood" (it was known by now, the MiG-25 wasn't that great). Firefox was based on a novel. If you have a novel about a Russian aircraft, and you know the MiG-15/17/19/21/23/25/27/29, what comes next? You can take 31 if it's more advanced, or fill in those blanks if it's not more advanced, like they did with MiG-28 in Top Gun.

If that story about the Russian pilot is true (I doubt it), then the guy is pretty stupid to think a Hollywood movie reflects US DOD intel. Any fabricated link between the movie's MiG-31 and the real MiG-31 is nonsense, IMHO.

Sure, the US overestimated Soviet capabilities all the time, technology and numbers-wise. but don't try to link that with fiction writing... It's funny though whenever they established the last thing was crap afterall, they were yet surprised and scared of the next thing. I think it's kinda like: overestimate -> get facts -> underestimate -> be surprised -> overestimate, etc.

[RecceJet]

If that story about the Russian pilot is true (I doubt it), then the guy is pretty stupid to think a Hollywood movie reflects US DOD intel. Any fabricated link between the movie's MiG-31 and the real MiG-31 is nonsense, IMHO.

Sure, the US overestimated Soviet capabilities all the time, technology and numbers-wise. but don't try to link that with fiction writing... It's funny though whenever they established the last thing was crap afterall, they were yet surprised and scared of the next thing. I think it's kinda like: overestimate -> get facts -> underestimate -> be surprised -> overestimate, etc.

Over-estimating also boosts the budget of any agency if they say they need more resources to keep tabs on the bad guys If an agency reports rival technology and development as inferior then perhaps the funding to keep tabs will be cut because the threat is percieved to be less.

[Webmaster]

That's a good point, especially with the three 'rival' services in the US.
Maybe, we can say that overestimating the enemy's capabilities is taking place is every arms race...? Well, it fuels/catalyzes the arms race.

Back on topic. There's another aviation movie out for a while now, Fly Boys. US volunteers flying with the French Air Force during WWI. Action footage is fake and surely looks fake, makes flying WWI planes look easy, typical hero actions with romance scenes, pretty bad, but still enjoyable. It's something else, at least. Anyone seen it?

[alyster]

I've seen it. I wouldn't watch it again.
Has anyone seen Hells Angels? I've been trying to find one for some time now.

And how was behind enemy lines aviation movie   

[Webmaster]

Hells Angels... nope, I don't think so.

Behind enemy lines. It's not an aviation movie  What irritated me the most was Owen Wilson, ever since Zoolander and other type-cast roles I can't take him serious. As aviation movie, it sucks. Computer animated Super Hornet on recce mission, pulling way too fast turns and bends to outmaneuver a SA-6, which takes forever (somehow), it looks like a video game (Ace Combat six?) eventually it's hit and our friend Owen and his buddy eject, his WSO is killed by enemy troops, but he gets away. It's like 10 minutes maybe? The rest is on-foot chased by (Bosnian-) Serbian military and some mercenary/ace/lonewolf "smart" sniper guy. Owen meets some Croat (I think) militia, encounters a minefield, hides between bodies of a mass grave, avoids sniper fire, the usual stuff. He needs to recover his recce-data-cd (which is somehow attached to his ejection seat) and make it for the extraction point. He takes out the sniper guy, by blowing up his ejection seat or something, can't remember exactly. In the mean time Gene Hackman is playing the typical US, stuborn and irritating commander (like the movie Crimson Tide), who basically says fuck you to NATO and protocol, "we are getting our guy out ourselves"... strangely he is eventually picked up by a Mi-8/17, which would suggest NATO coop.

It's okay to watch once, on TV or borrowed dvd. Don't buy or rent, it's a waste of money. Cheap, short story, highly predictable, bad casting + acting. It's supposed to be based on Scott O'Grady's story who was shot down in his F-16 over Bosnia, and struggled to keep alive, before he could be rescued. The reconstructions and footage in the documentary about it, is even better than this movie.

[rockymartin21]

Ah yeah I liked Top Gun!

[AVIATOR]

My favourite aviation movie is "Twelve O'clock High". The greatest of all time.
The acting put in by Gregory Peck as General Frank Savage is awesome.
I have the DVD and never get sick of it.

There is a reason that 12 O'Clock High is considered one of the finest war films ever made...it is. Simple as that. It deals with complex characters, hellish circumstances and unlike recent films Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers it conveys the destruction and horrors of war through dialogue or simple facial reactions rather than close-up shots of gore, bullets ripping through bodies or limbs flying off. I'm not dismissing either of these films, the point is, that these things can be done without the in your face version as well and sometimes I think filmmakers have forgotten that.



http://www.aerovintage.com/12oclock.htm