Broomstick wrote:Well, I saw it. I enjoyed it very much. Want more! Makes me want to run out to the airport and fly right now...
I know how you feel. I'm always playing Red Baron 3D, but it's been an especially busy weekend for ye olde M drive.
FSTargetDrone wrote:Are the aircraft behaving as they should? That is, are they too fast or do you get a sense of realistic speed and aerobatic realism?
For the most part yes. Frank's comment about proper control inputs for the manuvers is spot on.
Cool, having someone with RW knowledge verify you is..a warm tingly kinda thing.
By that point I was so involved in the film my analytical brain lobe was mostly off-line.
HA! I wasn't the only one!
The tail-slides followed by a hard rudder to hammerhead stick in my mind - everybody ran out of "up" at the same time and had to get back to flying again before they resumed fighting. More realistic than some of the seemingly endless climbs. Airplanes in that weight/power range need to dive to build up sufficient speed to successfully carry them through a loop, they can't do it starting from straight and level.
Something more on the film's manouvering depictions; what did you think of that stall of Cassidy's during the Zeppelin scene?
The got a lot of the little details right - on the ground you have the guys hanging over the sides of the cockpit and making S-turns to see where they're going. There are vibrations when they shoot.
Trivial note; James Franco got his pilot's license just before filming started, and they let him solo taxi a Nieuport for real, unlike the other actors who appear to be operating aircraft via film, err, magic.
And Frank - that "filth" and "crud" looked like normal operational dirt to me for ragwings operating off grass/dirt and throwing some oil. I've got a picture around here of Stearman windshield that had been cleaned off just before flight but while underway clearly shows oil and grit, and that from an engine far less prone to spitting than what was in the WWI era. Granted, the ground crews would have been cleaning that off daily, as much as possible (and I've cleaned my share of airplanes), but I think it would have spoiled the look of the film if they had been too clean.
Conceded, happily.
Besides, I'm looking at a photo of a Fokker E.III taking off at this very moment, and it looks absolutely
sticky with filth.
And Frank - did you catch those early, low-tech "flight simulators" they were using?
Sure 'nuff, something else that's about as accurate as it gets.
Some of the very low altitude manuvers reminded me of crop-dusting.
Ahh! Good point, I've watched enough crop-dusting in Arizona that I should have thought of that.
I've seen lunatics crop-dusting at
night, even!
To that extent they're possible, but would be damned dangerous. On the other hand, they were in a shooting war, and many of those guys survived on luck as much as skill. I am not an authority on dog-fighting, but I have flown airplanes in the weight and power range of the Nieuports (the Citabria I did my tailwheel training, for example - except the Citabria is more advanced and sophisticated than the Nieuport in many ways). The movie planes seemed to hang in extreme banks and knife-edge longer than I think would be possible in real life. Attempting to dodge trees at less than tree-top height with a bank angle over 45 degrees verges on the suicidal. But I'll cut them slack because it made for some cheap thrills and I was entertained.
Again with the RB3D flight-sim bit, I've pulled off some pretty slick shit in ground attack missions, and just
kissing the ground in that game can cause you to crash, but...well, you know.
I'll second that. It looked like France. They clearly went to some effort to capture the look of the period.
The urinal, I'm still giggling.
I'm also glad I paid attention in French class. I've heard some grumbling about how easily Lucienne learned English, but having the two of them continuing to stagger along in Franglish would have detracted from the movie.
I personally think the language criticisims aren't very fair; I picked up enough Spanish while working with Mexican co-workers to make simple things understood within a few hours, I think having Rawlings learn as much as he
did is a credit to the film makers. Bi-lingualism isn't historically a Hollywood strong point, after all.
Patrick Degan wrote:I'm inclined to give it half a chance. I'm hoping they didn't depict all the German planes in red, however.
Nope. Not ALL of them. The "Black Falcon" was - surprise! - black.
If I was the ghost of Josef Jacobs, I'd be beating somebody with a stick over that character having that color scheme, however.
I had some quibbles about the flying at night. It's certainly possible to fly an unlighted airplane after dark, even land it IF you had something like full moonlight, but it would have been dangerous and scary as hell. I wish they had played that up a little more.
You got that right.
Night flying was performed often during the war, and as far as German bomber squadrons are concerned, landing at night claimed more lives and aircraft than enemy action.
The zepplin scene -- well, zepplin bombings were always night operations, and at altitudes higher than airplanes could fly. And as Frank pointed out, they never had fighter escorts. But it made for a very dramatic scene, real eye-candy.
As for fighters intercepting Zeppelins in daylight, previously quoted WWI aviation author Greg VanWyngarden posted this at Aerodrome Forums:
Hi All,
Some commentators on other sites, in criticizing "Flyboys", have commented how unlikely it is that a Zeppelin would be making a daylight raid over the Western Front circa 1916-17, and being attacked by a squadron of Nieuports. I agree that that scene, visually exhilarating and exciting, is a bit far-fetched (especially the Zepp being escorted by a Jasta of red Triplanes - but it looks cool). However, there IS a historical precedent (though it didn't involve N.124)...
On the night of 19-20 October 1917, The German Navy launched 11 airships in what would be the last great Zepp raid of WWI. Nearly all the Zepps became lost in a high-altitude gale, and a spectacular catastrophe resulted - five out of the 11 failed to return.
Dawn of the 20th found the L 44 hopelessly lost in its attempt to return home, and over Lorraine 40 miles inside the French lines. As it tried to climb to 19,000 feet, French anti-aircraft guns opened up and the Zeppelin fell in flames.
The demise of L 44 was witnessed by the distraught crew of Zeppelin L 49, which had only 2 engines still running. Hopelessly lost, with a crew suffering from altitude sickness, the commander, Kapitanltn. Gayer, brought the ship down to 6500 feet to get himself oriented (he thought he was over Holland).
Unfortunately for Gayer, he was over the Western Front. Shortly after 6:00 AM Lt. Lefevre of Escadrille N.152 ("The Crocodiles") received a message reporting that a Zeppelin had been sighted over Espinal, going north.He immediately sent Lt. Lefargue to take his Nieuport up above the low and thick bank of fog with hid the sky from view. Lefargue returned at 6:45 and reported that the fog was thick up to 800 meters, but the sky was clear above that and he had sighted two Zepps.
Immediately five Nieuports, including those of Lt Lefargue and Lefevre, scrambled to intercept the Zepps (not unlike the scene in Flyboys). When the patrol reached 5300 meters, they found themselves higher than the Zepps, and attacked the L 49 at 08.30 hrs. The L 49 headed down, and the Nieuports followed but held their fire as long as the ship was descending. Whenever the Zepp tried to ascend, the Nieuports would buzz in and fire at her side. Eventually at 1,000 meters (according to Lefevre) the Zepp hoisted the white flag. Gayer brought the L 49 down near Bourbonne-les-Bains. The entire crew survived and stumbled out of the gondolas. Gayer attempted to set his ship on fire but failed before he was taken prisoner. The Zepp broke its back across a hill, and became the subject of numerous photos and even (I think) some movie footage. Lefevre landed nearby and Gayer surrendered himself and his crew to the French commander.
One member of N.152, Cpl. Denis, also attacked the L 50 but was reportedly caught under the violent fire of their defensive guns and forced to retreat. Nonetheless, the commander of L 50 was convinced he could not return to Germany with only 3 functioning engines. He deliberately dove his Zepp into the ground at Dammartin, trying to destroy it. The forward gondola was torn off, and sixteen of the Zepp's crew landed in the gondola or jumped safely to the ground. The battered hulk of the L 50 sailed off into the wind with four crewmen still aboard. It drifted southward, and was lost by following French fighters over the Mediterranean. It was never seen again.
While not as dramatic as the end of the Zepp in "Flyboys", the fate of L 49 at least shows that the spectacle of a Zeppelin being harassed by French Nieuports in daylight is not as far-fetched as it might seem (I always thought it would make a great painting - Russ?). However, despite dramatic episodes in both "Hell's Angels" and "Flyboys", there is no record of any Allied pilot ever diving his aeroplane kamikaze-style into a Zeppelin!
Greg VanWyngarden
And...there it is.
I've been hearing mixed reports on attendance; like I said, if this one fails there probably won't be a major WWI film made until after I've croaked...