Warbird Information Exchange

Most First World War scout squadrons seem to tangle with von Richthofen (or one of his cousins) at some point...!

_________________
Cheers

Daz

How about the incredibly accurate machine guns with the phenomenal rate of fire that walk a neat line of bullet holes every six inches up the fuselage to the cockpit?

_________________
Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

Those same machine guns do the same thing to a dirt road during a strafing pass....

Accompanied by lots of tire squeeling on dusty roads.

_________________
Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

How about the official airplane 'diving noise?' That whining crescendo noise actually comes from the flying and landing wires vibrating on a biplane at high speed but don't tell the directors who attach that noise to EVERY OTHER AIRPLANE. Really, all of them. Ever.

-Tim

_________________
Keep 'em Flying.

And I don't think we've had the "all helicopters have to have the Huey (Bell system) 'whop whop whop' noise" even when the blades can't make it...

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Let's not forget the Stuka siren sound effects whenever a plane goes into a terminal dive...

_________________
Cheers

Daz

'It's a terminal velocity dive for the Army, I'll be doing about 400 when I pull out'

_________________
Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

That's my all-time least favorite Aviation Movie Trope. I've never heard a real airplane make a sound anything like that..even aerobatic planes in a vertical dive. I've always wondered where the trope started..I though maybe it was inspired by the dive sirens on Stukas, but the sound effect was being used in movies well before that. I'd never heard that it was from the wires before, but it certainly makes sense. Of course, that means that no cantilever wing aircraft would even be capable of making that sound. Using it for anything other than a wire-braced aircraft is about as accurate as the (intentional) prop engine sound effects used for the 707 in "Airplane!"

Ironically, one of the few movies that didn't use the cheesy whine SFX was the recent "King Kong" remake. possibly because Peter Jackson is an aircraft officianado/collector. I always like it when directors start from scratch with sound rather than using tired old ckips from a library. Jackson actually sent a crew out to record a bunch of sound from a Harvard for his movie. It bodes well for his "Dambusters" project, provided it ever gets made.


Not all of them...some movie helos sound like Bell 47s...even ones that are actually turbine-powered!


Sound is one of those things that can really make or break a movie for me. I can't count the number of times I've been wrenched out of the movie by radail-engine aircrft with inline sound effects, or vice versa. or worse turboprop SFX. I remember seeing a TV show once where there was a closeup of a C-130 engine spooling up, but the SFX was a large radial engine turning over.

Speaking of over-used sound effects, how about that same tires-touching-the-runway sound effect used in every movie ever.


SN

Not a military movie but one about sled-dogs in the Antartic where a turboprop ski-plane (Porter?) shuts the engine down and it makes 450HP P&W 'clanking' noises...............

After watching, "The Blue Max" last night, I notice two more:
1. Tilting the camera to show planes diving at a higher angle, don't film makers realize we can see the clouds are roatating as well!
2. Cockpit shots obviously inside a studio, with lighting way lower than the cloudiest day and a background that never changes.
AMEN to that, brother! That always drove me nuts, wish I'd thought to post that!

_________________
Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)