Biggest Aviation-related Technical Blunders in a Movie etc?

[Ztex]

I love this thread!

[tom d. friedman]

midway, the movie........ from start to finish!! a celluloid abortion!!

[K5DH]

Having conversations in open cockpit airplanes....with no intercom.
Steve G

The same thing goes for passengers aboard commercial airliners on TV and in the movies. Despite the fact that the airliner is zipping along at 600 MPH, it's absolutely silent in the cabin, and the heroes can hear the villains whispering about their diabolical plans from several rows away. Apparently, no airline that I've ever flown on can afford such super-quiet luxury aircraft.

Apparently it's that way in military aircraft, too. Watch any episode of the old Twelve O'Clock High television series. The pilot, copilot, and engineer talk to each other on the flight deck in a normal voice without having to use the intercom (something we darn-sure can't do aboard Chuckie). Oh, and I almost forgot. . . when a nearby flak burst or bullets from an enemy fighter attack cause the flight deck windows to be shattered, there's no wind blowing around in the flight deck and it never gets cold, despite the fact that they're flying at 200 MPH at 25,000 feet.

Nevertheless, I still enjoy the heck out of watching those old episodes on by bootleg set of DVDs. . .

But wait. . . there's more!

I recall watching some TV show recently where the characters were riding in the cargo hold of a C-130, and the engine sound in the background was not turboprops, but radials!

On TV and in the movies, radio communications between the aircraft and the tower are always loud and crystal clear, with no interference, no garbling, and no heterodynes from pilots and controllers transmitting simultaneously. Unless, of course, the plot of the story requires radio communications to be poor, in which case there's all kinds of silly static and goofy noises coming out of the speaker. . .

Didja ever watch "Sparks", the radioman, sending a message in Morse? He pounds randomly on the key with a fingertip, with the key contact spacing set at something like 1/8 of an inch, and after just a few clicks, he's somehow sent an entire detailed paragraph of information! I think the only time I've seen it done right was in a movie where a USN radioman aboard a PBY sent actual text (which I copied in my head as I watched) that was correct right down to the AR at the end of the message (the A and R are sent as one character, didahdidahdit, which literally means, "end of message"). He even used the Morse key properly. Another complaint about Morse communications in the movies and on TV: when the code is being sent on a hand key, the sidetone that the viewer hears sounds like perfectly formed characters sent on an electronic keyer (which didn't exist before the mid 1950s).

Okay, okay. . . so only an amateur radio operator would notice the Morse stuff. . . cut me some slack!

[CAPFlyer]

Which of "the avionics" did they get right? It all seemed cheese to me. I've never done photo recce with a pod before, but I've been involved with plenty of ISR in a McDonnell Douglas aircraft that shares a lot of avionics with the Hornet, and nothing I've used looks anything like that.

I don't know about the specific screens they used for the "recce" pages, but the front end pages were recreated directly from the NATOPS manual for the F/A-18E and various pictures of the real thing by the Project Magenta crew - http://www.schiratti.com/bel/index.html

[Steve Nelson]

The prop engine sounds for the jet airliner in "Airplane". Oh wait, that may have been on purpose.

It was. I recently picked up the movie on DVD (the deluxe "Don't call me Shirley" edition.) In the commentary, the directors mention that they wanted to use piston/prop sound effects for everything, but the "suits" at Paramount nixed the idea (although the directors did manage to sneak in the prop SFX after takeoff.) I could swear I remember seeing the movie on TV ages ago, and there was a scene that showed the jet engines starting up, using radial sound effects. I suppose it could have been a bit that was cut from the theatrical (and DVD) version. The directors mentioned that the TV version of the film is actually a few minutes longer, because they put a few cut scenes back in to pad out the running time for broadcast.

SN

[rreis]

Is there any aviation movie that doesnt have something wrong with it ?

Maybe "SAC", for instance, with jimmy Stewart?

[Randy Haskin]

I don't know about the specific screens they used for the "recce" pages, but the front end pages were recreated directly from the NATOPS manual for the F/A-18E and various pictures of the real thing by the Project Magenta crew - http://www.schiratti.com/bel/index.html

That's actually pretty interesting, thanks for that link.

Sad that they went to such effort to create some stuff that looked pretty accurate, but could have so wildly missed the mark on other stuff.

[Garth]

Ok, here's a BIG one for me. "Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag". Went to see with a bunch of aviation-enthusiast friends shortly after NASM Dulles opened, thinking we were going to see a really cool, and technically accurate documentary about kick-a** fighter pilots and their death machines ... IN IMAX!.

But much to our surprise it turned out to be a COMEDY.

We really p*ssed off the other people in the theater by laughing our a**es off during most of the movie. Here are the big howlers that I recall:

The protagonist takes off from Eglin in an F-15C. Flies over the US in an F-15E. Then lands at Nellis in an F-15C, but one with a different s/n than the one he left in.

Same thing during the "combat" scenes. Except that they also intersperse seriously poor CGI of the aircraft into the scenes as well. At one point I think the protagonist switches, mid-flight, to flying an F-16.

The scene where the protagonist is pulled out of a classroom instruction to do an E&E scenario. There he is, hiding in the ONE clump of bushes in an otherwise barren desert while the OpFor guy are moving all around him, completely clueless to the fact that maybe, just maybe, they should look in the ONLY clump of bushes for miles around.

And then there's the real topper of them all. During the arrival scene at Nellis the narrator talks about all the different countries that participate as their aircraft taxi by. They actually got this one pretty accurate, iirc, but it's still pretty funny because it goes like this:

Narrator: "The British attend" (RN Sea Harrier taxis by)

Narrator: "The Canadians attend" (CAF Hornet taxis by)

Narrator: "The Germans attend" (Luft Tornado taxis by)

(at least two or three more repetitions of the above, with the accurate representative aircraft taxiing by. THEN ...)

Narrator: "Other countries attend as well" (Israeli F-16 taxis by).

Yup, don't want to admit that the Israelis attend Red Flag. No one is going to notice those pesky white/blue Stars of David on the green/sand/earth/gray camo'd F-16s, right?

[Randy Haskin]

The protagonist takes off from Eglin in an F-15C. Flies over the US in an F-15E. Then lands at Nellis in an F-15C, but one with a different s/n than the one he left in.

...and does an unrestricted climb takeoff on his squadron deployment to an exercise...

...and they say "welcome to Red Flag!!" on the radio when he arrives....

Oh, lord...for a movie that the USAF actually had a hand in helping film, you're right: it is a complete howler from start to finish. That pilot, BTW, has received immense amounts of crap for that movie.

[oscardeuce]

Mr Solo, a parsec is a unit of length, not time.

[Randy Haskin]

Mr Solo, a parsec is a unit of length, not time.

Well, as the discussion goes, being able to do the Kessel Run in a particular number of Parsecs is a display of prowess in jumping to lightspeed. Ergo, being able to do it in less segments of length (via jumps) than the other competitors.

[Garth]

Mr Solo, a parsec is a unit of length, not time.

Well, as the discussion goes, being able to do the Kessel Run in a particular number of Parsecs is a display of prowess in jumping to lightspeed. Ergo, being able to do it in less segments of length (via jumps) than the other competitors.

IIRC one of the books (which Lucas approves and are therefore considered canon) says that the Kessel run is through an area of space loaded with singularities. Shorter runs, given the shortest-distance rule of thumb (straight line), mean flying extremely close to the event horizons, which themselves are determined by the power of the ships' engines.

The Falcon's engines were strong enough that she could go close enough to the singularities to make the run in an extremely short distance.

[Larry Wielgosz]

I'm guessing Star Wars is being mentioned. I have never been in space and I don't study space travel. I'm not a Star Wars buff or a Trekian. I've always wondered with all the dogfighting going on why no one is strapped in. I can't say in all the scenes (it's been quite some time since I watched the movie and all the sequels) but I do recall people hardly moving around while standing and sitting while the ships are yanking & banking, twisting & turning, upside down. Correct me if I am wrong. I know it's a movie for entertainment and I enjoyed it.

[CAPFlyer]

Larry - It's all about artificial gravity and inertial dampeners. The first allows them to walk around without spinning the ship and the second is what keeps them in their seats and intact when going from "relative" stop to greater than light speeds in a fraction of a second. However, to keep things interesting, Star Trek does note that the Inertial Dampeners do have a tiny bit of lag, so things like very hard rotational or translational movements will cause some G-forces to be experienced in addition to explaining why they work so well for warp speed but if the ship gets hit by something, people can still get knocked out of their seats.

As for the "Airplane!" thing - remember that the movie is an almost direct knock-off of the movie "Zero Hour!" (to the point that the makers of "Airplane!" licensed the rights to "Zero Hour!") which uses a DC-4 as the aircraft in question. The "propliner" track in "Airplane!" is actually the track used from "Zero Hour!". TCM just ran the two back-to-back which shows just how true to the original "Airplane!" was.

[reno64]

Love this thread!!

Although not in a theatrical movie, the shot that has always bothered me the most is the clip of SBD's dive bombing Pearl Harbor!! I think this clip came to light in the Victory at Sea series eons ago, and had been used repeatedly in every documentary on the Pearl Harbor attack.