Warbird Information Exchange

Just watched this video on Hulu, I have to say it rocks! Its 48 min long but well worth it!

http://www.hulu.com/watch/24197/fighter ... n-red-flag

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" excuse me stewardess I speak jive"

I just watched it this morning. Great video. It was originally an IMAX movie, I never made it to go see it though.

Some of the CGI was Corney but all in all it was very informative! I had no idea how in depth red flag was. I thought it was all yanking and banking? Not true! If you have not seen it please do yourself a favor and watch it!

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" excuse me stewardess I speak jive"

I saw this in the theater - excellent - in the opening sequence where the ranking officers walk into the room - the guy on the left side, end of the row - He is the General in charge of the ACC demo teams for the Air Force - really nice guy.

Tom P.

Unfortunately, the movie is very unrealistic, too.

Isn't all PR a bit on the "glossed and glammed up" side?

Having said that - Randy, what specifically about the movie? I assume that there is a heck of a lot more breifing and planning than the movie depicts - fill us in!

Tom P.

Awww, you mean the shots of the F-16 Aggressor pilot in an F-15 aren't real?

Randy, thans for once again being the complete bright spot of the party-

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Well, honestly, it's just all cheesed up for the movie. If I had that kind of free time, it would be fun to sit down and write a shot-for-shot critique. Unfortunately, that link doesn't work here in the UK so I can't watch it right now.

I knew it was going to be a turd in the first 5 minutes....as soon as we hear the tower controller at Nellis says "welcome to Red Flag" or whatever as soon as the Eagle lands. Riiiiiight.

Hell, as soon as the Eagle does the max performance takeoff on his "deployment" to Nellis, you know it's going to be all flash and no substance.

Real deployments to Red Flag are serious business -- lots of jets departing as formations, all orchestrated departures as a group with a Tanker (unless your unit is close enough to not need a Tanker), external fuel and bags packed. The movie makes it look like the dude is just hopping in a jet for a leisurely hop over to Nellis. Sure as hell there are no max performance climbs on the way there.

Anyway, until I have a chance to sit back on a saturday with a nice rum-and-coke and my laptop in front of me, I won't be able to post a more substantive review. You'd be better served to meet me at OSH or Reno this year, get liquored up, and go watch it together so I can give a real-time play-by-play like MST3K.

Of course its all cheese to the trained expert, but to the untrained eye its real. Of course they hammed it up it is after all a professionally produced film, I mean how many untrained or unfamilure people (to airplanes) really understand that the 707 in the movie airplane does not make the bbbrrrr sound of a radial? Its entertainment. The point of the post for me was to maybe let other people like me who are not involved with the military flying services of the world know that there is more to red flag other then turning and burning. Like I said in my second post it was an eye opener to the depth of the exercise.

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" excuse me stewardess I speak jive"

That would actually be kinda fun. I was tempted to post here after watching it to ask you about it. I'd have to dig up my MST3K static sticker to put on my monitor while reading it though

If I can get my summer airshow schedule determined, we can make it a WIX event, heh heh.

The problem that I have with the film is that it would have been just as interesting if they did not ham it up. The real action that occurs in the process of executing that exercise is way more interesting than the staged situations set up for the film.

I happen to think that people are pretty smart, and if you treat them intelligently they will respond. Some simple narration -- a device they all ready used via the poor F-15C pilot Captain they suckered into doing this film -- would have served to explain what was happening just as easily.