Warbird Information Exchange

I think Jan-Michael Vincent might have got his helicopter ticket back in the “Airwolf” days.

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Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.

Many, many films and TV shows simply tow the aircraft with the actor in it so it looks like they are actually taxing it. Sometimes a qualified pilot is ducking down,(if it's a two-seater) and actually manipulating the controls until the shot is done. This was done for "Red Tails" with a whole rig set up. In "Memphis Belle", that put the built up studio B-17 cockpit at the appropriate angle on a truck bed and "taxied" them around while shooting the actors in the cockpit.
If the actors are capable or have piloting experience, they may let them taxi the aircraft for short distances for the illusion.
All Hollywood Magic!
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

I was the screenwriter on a movie called The Aviator in the '80s. Not the good De Caprio Aviator, the not-so-good Aviator with Chris Reeve, for which I take some of the blame. It was an adaptation of an Ernest Gann novel--a mailplane pilot in the 20's on a Northern Rockies route takes a young girl passenger along--they crash, it's how they get out. Not very accurate--we shot the mountain stuff in Yugoslavia standing in for the Rockies and we had big-engine Stearmans from England passing off as Boeing Mailplanes.

Chris Reeve, you remember, was the star of the big Superman movie in the '80s, and he on his own had gotten his PPL. He told me his young kids were confused about whether Daddy could really fly through the air with a cape or in an airplane, and so he insisted, despite the howls from the insurance company, that there be one shot in the movie that would clearly show the world and his kids that he could fly an airplane. About the middle of the movie, he's in a Stearman back cockpit on a grass field with the engine ticking over, he gives it throttle, it gathers speed, the tail raises, the Stearman with Reeve lifts off and flies away to a dot in the distance. No cuts--it's clearly him. It's a pretty nice shot.

Double post. Sorry.

I was told by a Bell test pilot that Bell gave Universal a prototype/test cockpit for filming. Of course the fancy weapons controls were pure Hollywood.

In one episode, perhaps the pilot film,.they poke a bit of fun of Hollywood actors playing pilot. Some heartthrob brags to the media he learned how to fly for his role and Vincent's character makes him wet himself with some impressive flying.

One example on how not to fool the audience:
In In Harm's Way, Kirk Douglas sits in the B-25's right seat for a solo flight. The unseen guy in the left seat no doubt did the real taxi.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

Jungmann

Thanks for the nice "I was there" story.
A friend has a poster of that film hanging in his hangar workshop.

He actually owns one of the few surviving Stearman mailplanes.

I have a autographed copy of that book. Back in the '80s, Gann would autograph his books that were for sale at the bookshop in his hometown, Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, Washington.
They were out of Fate is the Hunter when I visited, but I kept their address and got one a couple of months later.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

I liked that movie (I have it here on DVD). I know exactly the scene you're mentioning.

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Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.

Part of The Aviator scene is featured on the trailer at 1' 08" -

True!

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Cheers,

Craig

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Thanks for unmasking, would you be interested in starting a thread about the making of that movie? In the book the girl was 11 and the dynamic was the emotionally damaged pilot rediscovering his "protector" side after the crash. As much as I liked her and was dismayed to hear what Weinstein did to her career, Rosanna Arquette was the wrong age for the story (26) and the change to an adult, spoiled rich bitch it totally changed the dynamic, I'm kinda curious about how it got changed around.