Why Aviation Movies Don't Work

You forgot 'Top Gun'. My father, a fighter pilot, sat through the whole movie saying "you can't do that, or that, or that....." ruining the movie. All 'Hollywood' aviation movies aren't realistic. Just like you get doctors complaining about Grey's - it the same for all shows/fields. What you fail to point out is 'Top Gun' created a huge influx of people wanting to join the military and go through pilot training. It was a great win for the military/aviation industry because it gave people the desire to learn to fly. Flying became 'cool', fighter pilots became 'cool' to a larger group of people, than if that movie didn't come out. So to me - who cares if it's unrealistic....at least it creates the fasination and 'awww' that keeps people continuing to want to fly.

Making a film about aviation usually means the director highlighting the "danger" and "drama" of aviation. That is after all how most film directors AND virtually all non-pilots perceive flying. Unlike westerns, action dramas or comedies, where each audience member can personally relate the subject matter to events in their own lives, aviation is mysterious and non well known to most viewers. So actors and directors focus on exposing the core humanity of the characters, eschewing the characteristics of the machine they're in. In short: film makers are artists and think in terms of emotional/visual impact and expression; pilots are thinkers/analyzers/risk managers yearning for great visuals, realism and some techie stuff in their aviation movies. And the high cost and sheer logistics of trying to film, let alone trying to accurately convey speed or acceleration and turning, leads film makers away from action scenes and towards cheaper, more traditional glitzy closeups.

So how then to convey the unique aspects of flying, especially to "aeroludites? To me the best scenes are "pilot's eye view" facing forward or outward at other angles from the aircraft, with some sort of background (low flying, clouds, buildings, scenery, other aircraft) close by to help convey the strong sense of motion. One of my favorites was a Blue Angels movie where they flew F-4s with many formation scenes visible from the slot aircraft, loops, rolls, splits etc.

The Great Waldo Pepper conveyed the transition from the post-WW-1 barnstormers to aviation's first era of regulation. It had many interesting scenes, particularity the dog fight scene near the end of the film. The Blue Max has some excellent dogfighting scenes. The opening scene of The right Stuff has a great cockpit view looking forward, skirting the edges of high clouds at jet speeds while simulating a Bell X-1. Poor Art Scholl perished filming a spin sequence for that film. The Aviator had a few good flying scenes but pilots probably preferred the scenes where Hughes was deciding to remove the top wing and add flush rivets to make the H-1 go faster.

A few years ago I paid a few hard earned $$$ to ride the Canadian Armed Forces Snowbirds ground simulator at a Canadian airshow. It was a rather rough ride that was far too short, but it was realistic enough to made some riders queasy.

As a youngster I was pleased to view a film shot and displayed from over a dozen angles, at the Tallmantz Movieland of the Air at the old Orange County airport—now called John Wayne airport I believe. The viewer was surrounded on all sides with moving scenery and it felt real enough that some people felt the need to hold onto railings, especially when the plane rolled steeply. That was to me the best example of how to display the thrill of flying, much as Mark Phelps has suggested.

Do I think 3-D screens will help convey the magic of flight? It could better convey the impact of things like near misses coming straight at you, or a fighter pilot's view of a SAM coming up at him.

Douglas M
Surrey, BC Canada