the movie Twelve O'Clock High

[Maverick]

The aft fuselage for several crash and burn sequences in the TV series was from 44-83316 and is now on
Champaign Lady restoration in Urbana, Ohio.

[JohnB]

The aft fuselage I saw in 2011 sure didn't look old and battered...or was it just new skin?

[maxum96]

Thanks for the update on the Greeley B-17 now with the Liberty Belle folks...I had been told that the B-17 in the National WWII museum was her no doubt....but I also see that apparently that deal fell through....glad to hear she might be a flyer in the future!!

I used to go to the Armory (aka Armpit) for burgers and check out the B-17. I used to talk to Dean (Armory bar owner) about the plane. I was amazed that the ball turret was still there. It's with the Urbana group now if memory serves me right. So with the fuselage being with the Liberty Bell group, that means all the B-17 parts that were in the Armory are going to fly again. I think that's awesome.

[Maverick]

The only useful parts from 3316 were the ball turret platform and bulkhead 7. Every thing else on the aft fuselage was replaced with new parts including all the skins on Champaign Lady. The remainder of the aft fuselage for 3316 ended up in the scrap pile. The aft section interior was burnt from simulated fires and looked like a burnt frying pan. About a 4ftX8ft section was cut out of the left side probably for camera access. Yes, the ball turret and engine control quadrant from the armory are in Urbana.

[avenger2504]

Down here in little old New Zealand today we were discussing at work how a lot of the movies made depicting the US in the air seem to be of them bombing the crap out of someone. We talked about the Battle of Britain movie and I offered the Battle of Midway or the Bridges of Toki Ri (probably spelt that wrong!) but of course this is the Navy, not the USAAF. Even Redtails depicts bomber escort but at least there is some fighter versus fighter.
Is there a comparable movie to be made along the lines of the Battle of Britain but with the US Fighter groups? I know it wasn't all bomber escort and would love to see a P51 or P47 or even P38 fighter squadron on the big screen. Pearl Harbor comes to mind actually but dear god lets tone down the "Titanic" love story stuff. There has to be an untold story or one that NEEDS to be told.
And I loved 12 0'clock high too!

[ErrolC]

Definitely a great movie.

Was the discussion prompted by this piece:

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/9be7001871ee

Where Is America’s Battle of Britain?
The U.S. Air Force’s curious box office failure

Robert Farley in War is Boring

Where have all the good Air Force movies gone?

Air power should, and occasionally does, sell at the box office. But Officer and a Gentleman, Top Gun, Flight of the Intruder and Rescue Dawn all depicted Navy pilots. In Independence Day, Marine aviator Will Smith saves the world, alternating between a Marine Corps F/A-18 and an alien snubfighter.

The Air Force gets Iron Eagle, in which a teenager with a tape recorder fills in for Maverick and Goose. More recently, Red Tails flopped with audiences and critics. Only Pearl Harbor stands as partial exception. Hated by critics, historians and all right-thinking people, director Michael Bay’s depiction of Army Air Force aviators challenging the Japanese grossed $197 million domestically.

Why, despite the expenditure of tremendous resources on PR, does the Air Force have such trouble connecting with the movie-going public?
...