Speed and Angels

I expected more along the lines of Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag or AFP: American Fighter Pilot. Speed & Angels was mucho better. Thanks for posting the link!
 
Definitely better than the two you described, but I still thought it had a degree of retardation to it.

One of my buds was one of the students in AFP...that's been worth a career of jokes for him.
 
Hacker15e said:
Definitely better than the two you described, but I still thought it had a degree of retardation to it.
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Well, that's gonna be the case anytime you're talking about clueless noobs who are a greater threat to themselves and their teammates than to any adversary. I thought the flick made a number of rather salient (if subtle) points, including that one. And to be fair, the degree of retardation is only apparent to those on the inside; any truly accurate picture of the world of a fighter pilot would be a) intellectually inaccessible to any other audience, and b) probably classified.
 
Awesome movie! A few have said it was skewed a bit, but looking past that, just from an inspirational standpoint it was spot on. What they accomplished is amazing and it made for a great story. 4.7 out of 5
 
Hacker15e said:
Definitely better than the two you described, but I still thought it had a degree of retardation to it.
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I agree. I think they dumbed it down a little too much and at some points the story board wasn't logical. Plus they snuck in a lot of F-18 footage? However the actual indie IMAX quality film, what parts there are, is breath taking. Plus I love the F-5!

Bought it when it came out a few months back. It really looks good on blueray.

I still think Carrier has to be one of the best fighter pilot/ military day in the life of. Especially around the middle of the 10 episodes.
 
Carrier came out during the time I've been overseas, so I missed it. Heard good things about it, though.
 
I just watched all the episodes on the PBS website. Some high points, and also some dwelling on really unimportant/exaggerated crap to make a point for the director.
 
Speed and Angels was pretty cool. Hacker, I am afraid I am missing what the levels of retardation may be, probably because I am just a laymen. Could you share a few instances if possible? Would be cool to hear it from someone that actually is in the fighter community.

Carrier - Wow. I feel sad for the poor souls on that ship, uh boat, whatever. I would rather serve a jail term than live in that hell.
I have been in Navy ports of call when the crew comes ashore. They decimated towns, yet I always felt sorry for them as well. 5000 18-22 yr old boys and girls who have miraculously managed to live in a steel prison suppressing natural human tendencies for months on end and now they get to leave it for a day and do whatever they want.....Oh dear.
 
LoadMasterC141 said:
Speed and Angels was pretty cool. Hacker, I am afraid I am missing what the levels of retardation may be, probably because I am just a laymen. Could you share a few instances if possible? Would be cool to hear it from someone that actually is in the fighter community.

Carrier - Wow. I feel sad for the poor souls on that ship, uh boat, whatever. I would rather serve a jail term than live in that hell.
I have been in Navy ports of call when the crew comes ashore. They decimated towns, yet I always felt sorry for them as well. 5000 18-22 yr old boys and girls who have miraculously managed to live in a steel prison suppressing natural human tendencies for months on end and now they get to leave it for a day and do whatever they want.....Oh dear.
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Come on now....18-22 was the average age.....It was far from a steel prison. Creative editing shows all the drama, otherwise it would be boring.....As for it being months on end.......Not really true. the longest time we were underway was 41 days. during the Gulf War though, at one point, the Ranger was under way for close to 120 days straight.

As for decimating a town...come on now it was never that bad. We dumped tons of $$$ into the local economy any time we stopped in. Sydney and Perth loved us......from King Street to Wooloomooloo(sp?) Wharf.... :D
 
I guess I got caught up in the docudrama then......still though, to each his own. I am just amazed at how much life and liberty is given up on those cruises. My time in the AF was spent overseas in Hyatts and Marriots for the most part. Such a world of difference.
 
LoadMasterC141 said:
Speed and Angels was pretty cool. Hacker, I am afraid I am missing what the levels of retardation may be, probably because I am just a laymen. Could you share a few instances if possible? Would be cool to hear it from someone that actually is in the fighter community.
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On the most basic level, what they're showing during aerial sequences does not match what is actually happening in the scenarios that they're depicting. There's a lot of formation flying that looks a little like jets maneuvering against each other to the uneducated (a'la Top Gun), but is not real dogfighting (specifically the F-5 training footage where they're down flying around mountain peaks and doing aileron rolls through clouds). Looks pretty, but not real -- hell, they even make the point of describing a "5K hard deck"...then show jets rooting down at 500' through the mountains. The little CGI that shows the dogfight IS realistic-ish in terms of showing what the maneuvering looks like in three dimensions...but the footage of the jets isn't it.

They also hash together dialogue during flying/fight sequences that isn't really in correct sequence, cadence, or matching what's happening in the footage. Again, it looks/sounds good for a movie, but doesn't match what real dogfighting looks/feels/sounds/smells like.

Lots of things like that.
 
Ahh I see. I actually just assumed that stuff was not accurate so I feel better now. Any reccomendations for more accurate footage in documentary format?
 
LoadMasterC141 said:
Ahh I see. I actually just assumed that stuff was not accurate so I feel better now. Any reccomendations for more accurate footage in documentary format?
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Unfortunately, no.

Of all things, I think that "American Fighter Pilot" gave the best feel of what a real dogfight is actually like, despite the completely idiotic production of the show. The BFM scenes (even the ones in the trailers that I think are still available on the net) where you can hear the guys grunting and panting while under G...that's reality!

I actually do have some old T-38 dogfight footage from when I was an instructor...but even that is basic, "canned" fighting that we teach to students. Unfortunately, the footage is through the HUD, so you can only see the other jet when it's getting shot!
 
LoadMasterC141 said:
Ahh I see. I actually just assumed that stuff was not accurate so I feel better now. Any reccomendations for more accurate footage in documentary format?
Click to expand...

I suppose it's one of those things that can't ever be accurately conveyed on film.

To say that the dogfighting scenes are realistic isn't the same as saying that they are accurate. The film "Blackhawk Down" was a realistic view of an urban firefight, but that dosen't mean that's what it was like in Somolia.

Regardless, the footage is awesome to watch.
 
If only Jesse Negron had obtained the $ he needed to make that into the program it deserved to be.

My friend told me that he actually was donig a good job of capturing the right look and feel of the flying -- that they'd made some special camera attachements on the jets and had extensively filmed fights.

Unfortunately, once "network television" became involved, they turned a great idea into a total turd.

Same story as "Red Flag"....and I'm guessing a similar story to "Speed and Angels".

What I will say is that a real dogfight is pretty cinematically boring to watch. When you're talking about airplanes that are flying in circles that are 3/4 of a mile in diameter, it is tough to get two jets in the same frame at the same time. If you do...they're tiny specks against a huge expanse of sky.

Every once in a while, jets pass each other, and both Speed and Angels and AFP showed some pretty cool shots of "merges" that may or may not have been taken during actual engagements (I suspect they were staged, but that's my opinion having flown the "camera ship" during air to air photo and video shoots). Those shots are pretty interesting, and of course show how fast the relative speeds are during a dogfight.

Unfortunately, the other 90% of the fight takes place much further away.

I actually tried in my last job as a BFM instructor to get some legitimate air-air footage of BFM. I was building a DVD to give to students so before we actually went and flew an engagement for real, they could have watched it at home beforehand. I'm certainly not a trained cinematographer by any stretch of the imagination, but neither I nor the "combat camera" dude that the AF provided could figure out a way to film something that was real, and have it look like anything besides insects buzzing across the screen.

So, I certainly appreciate the tough time that people have in depicting jet dogfighting on camera. But...that doesn't mean that whatever acceptable alternative they come up with doesn't have a large measure of retardation...just like in Speed and Angels.
 
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