Warbird Information Exchange

are there any info or pics or links to video of the b-17 that crashed and burned while filming the memphis belle movie?? i guess i shouldnt assume that it crashed but i do know that it burned. was anybody hurt?? was any footage of the incident ever used in a movie??

I think it was a power problem on take off. I keep wanting to say something to do with a supercharger, but not sure. In the movie, the scene with fire trucks driving out to a burning B-17 near the start of the film, is actual footage. The tail of this aircraft is now over a fireplace in Billy Zanes house!

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Is Billy Zane's house at Duxford?

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"Hindsight is usually 20% off!"

I am not sure, but it was posted on here about the tail being over the fireplace. I think it was just the verticle that is up there.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Not so. No film of the incident was used in the finished movie. The scene of the burning B-17 was mocked up using an old Pembroke airframe and large-scale models.

There's a video that I bought years ago on eBay called 'Belle & the Glory Boys' that has the footage.

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"Anyway, the throat feels a bit rough...the legs have gone...but I'm still able to chant, so let's get going."

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I believe Flypast Magazine also had photos of the crash.

Check out this link for a photo of the post fire remains.
http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/oldstuff/belle/belle.htm

Jerry

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I had a copy of that video I bought years ago and never opened until tonight. They show the puff of smoke and the plane vering to the right and the left wing coming up, but they do not show the actual crash, they do show the fire and wreckage.

Hello, makes of it; is the F-BEEA which is crushed then; it took off in parallel with Pink Lady, the pilot has his edge was very tested but according to André Dominé (pilot chief of Pink Lady) the F-BEEA with undoubtedly surprised by turbulences of Pink Lady and east left s' to crush in a field, without making casualties fortunately. Michel Bézy (other pilot of Pink Lady) confirmed this assumption one years ago

B-17 F-BEEA was in continuous service since 1947!

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Half Pint: the real story of the Pink Lady

Yes there is footage, well some of it, the take off roll and about 5 seconds after impact, until the fire was out, all caught on video. My Girlfriend was on board at the time sitting in the waist position in what was her first and her last flight (sort of) in a B-17.

I was stationed over the in the AF during the filming and we were all invited to come up and be "extras". They needs a bunch of people to play the ground crews. Unfortunately my boss wouldn't let me off work I was really surprised when we were told about the B-17 that had crashed on takeoff.

I knew the belly landing in the movie was a miniature, but I always thought they used the burned-out wreckage in the "post explosion" scene.

If you watch, when the model hits the ground, the prop blades all snap off and go flying..but in the next shot as it slides to a stop, the blades are back on, but bent and twisted.

One thing (of many) that always bugged me about that movie was the fact that the had five flying B-17s, yet you never see more than two or three together in the air. The mass formation shots were all done with miniatures and matte paintings (since the movie was pre-CGI.) I'd almost like to see the film remade, but with CGI replacing the rather pedestrian model shots. But on second thought, the film was so bad I'd rather see them just do another WWII bomber movie from scratch.

SN

Hey Mike, not the whoel crash, only the one fast shot of the trucks driving to the crash after it is burning. They talk about it in Belle and the Glory Boys I think.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Stangdriver, I think you're correct about the wreckage of F-BEEA being used in the post-crash fire truck scene, but the fires looked to me like staged pyrothechnics. I also doubt that they'd have 1940s fire equipment responding to the actual crash.

SN

Yeah, I thhnk you are right.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director