Lots of runways at Hickam AFB ... so hard to say. Hills in the background look like HI.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/J...6028517a!8m2!3d21.348698!4d-157.9440178?hl=en
A-10 Warthog-AKA-Thunderbolt II-Tank Buster
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https://www.google.com/maps/place/J...6028517a!8m2!3d21.348698!4d-157.9440178?hl=en
Certainly for the ground scenes. However, once they start taxiing, there are absolutely no hills nor any large bodies of water. That is definitely not any part of Honolulu near the airport. There are a couple of shots of them flying over an airport with a creek in the background and farmland and this vegetation all around. Besides the fact that it's not Hickam/HNL, there is no way that they would have ever gotten permission to fly over a major passenger airport anyways.
I didn't pay too much attention to Hickam last time I was there, but back in the 90s I'm pretty sure I saw an F-15, F-16, and a C-5 from the window of a 747. I tried looking on Google Maps satellite images, and right now I don't see any F-22s, but there are 3 B-2s parked outside. A lot of cargo planes too. I though they needed to avoid rain whenever possible.
https://goo.gl/maps/FspfrSz1655gN7CS7
The current map shows a lot of cargo planes and tankers. But here I see 3 F-16s, an F-15, and one oddball plane in a camo pattern. Could be foreign military?
https://goo.gl/maps/JtLtnw8GhSjtmjug8
The last time I was there we landed on the reef runway. Possibly the most interesting approach I've ever seen, surrounded by all the coral.
https://goo.gl/maps/FspfrSz1655gN7CS7
Did you look at the Google map link I posted (in satellite view) ? Look at what other airport is adjacent to Hickam AFB.
There is water everywhere to the south - the Pacific ocean. The international airport is right next to Hickam. They need to coordinate with the commercial airport constantly.
Obviously, the part of the movie after they take off is not Hawaii.
Yes. I thought we were on the same page - that it's a joint civilian airport and military base.
I still can't figure out where they filmed the flying scenes. There's nothing in any production info that says where that footage came from. If I were to guess, they let Emma Stone climb into the cockpit, strap herself in, flash a shaka, and that was the end of it. It's still the most extensive use of an F-22 in a movie, even if there's no action. I heard the USAF filmed some actual flying scenes of an F-22 for the Transformers movies, but it was pretty short from what I remember.
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Burt Rutan has your cheaper and better Tank Buster named ARES or Agile Responsive Effective Supports...
ARES Agile Responsive Effective Supports
ARES Agile Responsive Effective Supports
This is a flyby wire plane with good ole manual cables for back up. Good design plane.
a Russian pilot in Syria flying a Su-25 got hit by shoulder fired AA and had to kill himself with a grenade to avoid capture. the chechens shot down many of them too.
these things were designed as glorified suicide planes and are useless against a real army. the a10c does absolutely nothing the f-35 can’t. hopefully we’ll see it pulled from service in the near future
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edyvw
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If you arm F35 like A10, and make it loiter above the theater for close air support like A10 can, you should be the next chairmen of JCS.
Su25 is also very sturdy airplane. ANy airplane can be shoot down. My friend from Macedonia was hit by Strela 2M missile in SU25, but due to structure where one of the engines has armor, he landed. F35 can be shot too, especially during close air support. However, considering price tag of F35, it is a more expensive exercise. Unlike Su25, F35 won't land.
I was in a discussion with someone about the F-35 vs the A-10. I know they're very different, but the most laughable comment I read was a claim that a soldier with a rifle could just put it on full auto and pump an F-35 full of lead while an A-10 would probably survive. Of course the odds of hitting an F-35 with an AK is pretty low and it's not going to be able to reach an aircraft a mile up in the air. And even if it was hit at close range I'm not sure it would do that much damage other than putting a dent or a small hole that doesn't do much.
I do remember a scene from the late 80s TV show Supercarrier that showed a Master Chief trying to evacuate civilians while a jet (from a rogue military faction) flies low above him and he starts shooting at it with his M1911. However, I've heard of a parachuting pilot getting a lucky hit on an aircraft with an M1911.
edyvw
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C130's delivering food to Sarajevo during siege 92-95 were getting regularly shot at with small arms weapons. They regularly took lead in and pilots were sitting on their bulletproof vests so they do not take hit in the ass. That is when they started to do so-called Sarajevo approach, steep dive in, and landing.
F35 will not take a hit from AK-47, but in close air support might take from GS23. The amount of 23mm ZS cannons in Africa and the Middle East is ridiculous. Every village has few.
In high school I read book on Vietnam War equipment. It mentioned helicopter pilots wearing fiberglass underwear to “protect their privates”. So I guess the assumption would be that they’d be shot at with small arms fire and might survive it if the pilots were protected. It also showed naval aviators were equipped with a .38 Special revolver as a sidearm. Exactly what good would that be other than for committing suicide or as a noisemaker?
The Navy was issuing the .38 special (The S&W Chief's special with a 2" barrel) up through the late 90s. It wasn't until 2002 that they issued flight crews the M-11 (Sig Sauer P229). Many of us carried our own sidearms in combat, a practice that wouldn't be allowed these days.
Hey, there are just so many great USAF movies, I mean, who can forget “Iron Eagle”? Flown exclusively with F-16 models on a wire...
Then there’s, um, “Firefox”, right, I mean, it was kind of USAF...or, how about “Dr. Strangelove”? I mean, James Earl Jones and Slim Pickens? Who didn’t want to be a B-52 guy after that one, right?
I got curious and found that I could watch a few of the Iron Eagle movies on a couple of streaming services either free or included with my subscription. Watched about half of the original and saw part of the last one that went direct to video. Just for research purposes really because they were pretty bad.
They used real F-16s for the Iron Eagle movies. But the USAF wouldn't cooperate since the script involved theft of aircraft. So they got the participation of the Israeli Air Force, which painted their planes in USAF patterns, and Kfirs as Migs. The flying scenes were actually quite well done. I don't think they would have been allowed to take them to the US like that. Of course you have to suspend a ton of disbelief to watch it. That they would let a high school student use an F-16 simulator. That said high school students could somehow get access to all sorts of classified information. That one would be allowed to fly an F-16 and even be provided a refueling. That a high school student would be allowed to use an F-16 with live weapons. It's also like those old westerns where a six-shooter doesn't seem to run of ammo until after 30 shots. But he does run out.
The explosions were pretty bad though. Multiple gun kills result in the enemy going up in a fireball.
The last one was really weird because it looks like one F-16 fires a Maverick against a flying aircraft. The ones shot down were USAF pilots from a renegade faction of looking to release a chemical weapon into Cuba. I guess it doesn't really have to make sense. They also had student pilots in T-6s where they had guns. That seemed a little bit weird.
^^^ She has the right Hawaii NG 199th squadron patch on the right shoulder at time 0:27, but flying scene near the end isn't Hawaii.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/199th_Fighter_Squadron
http://usafunithistory.com/PDF/0100/175-199/199 FIGHTER SQ.pdf
Just curious how that works that active duty regular Air Force pilots fly in an Air National Guard unit. I looked it up and you're right, but it just seems odd.
this is what “close air support” will look like in the near future. precision guided munitions are king
edyvw
$50 site donor 2026
Have you ever been 100 yards from 500lbs bomb exploding?
Also, rules of engagement. The US has very strict rules of engagement, and close air support by the US military might be much harder to do than by other militaries that do not care about collateral damage.
Watched part of the movie last night. It cuts straight from Emma Stone sitting in the cockpit of the F-22 to John Krasinski in the cockpit of a C-17 at night. That piece of video I linked looks to just add some other footage of F-22s taxing, taking off, and flying over farmland.
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