Favorite Aviation Movies-No Highway in the Sky

[Number_35]

Always

This was a late-'80s ghost story, centered around water bombers. It's been decades, but I think there was a PBY Catalina and a B-25 Mitchell.

 

[wemay]

Tora Tora Tora
Airport
Airplane

 

[Number_35]

Unbroken

Lots of great B-24 Liberator footage. It may be CGI, I don't know, but it sure looks realistic.

 

[wemay]

I liked Dunkirk (2017) too.

 

[MolaKule]

Hope its ok to add another aviation movie. Love to get @Astro14 take on this film.

From wiki:
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and won two: Dean Jagger for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Thomas T. Moulton for Best Sound Recording. In 1998, Twelve O'Clock High was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Twelve O'Clock High​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_O'Clock_High

I think the TV series was better than the original movie. The original movie had too much inter-personal drama and not enough war action for my tastes.

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

The Navy got Top Gun, the Air Force got Red Flag, The Movie. It was so bad I'm suprised the Air Force made its recruiting goals for the next couple of years. When flying with our Navy counterparts we took a lot of grief over that abomination.
The Air Force partly made up for it by not approving of the Iron Eagle movies, which were horrible.

 

[Oldwolf]

While not exactly an aviation movie, Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World had some great stunt flying in both a twin engine Beech and an old WW1 era biplane.

Yes, it has some aviation scenes that are good. The movie is hilarious, totally cracra. Some good car scenes too. What a classic.

 

[JimPghPA]

The Right Stuff

I took exception to the vilification of astronaut Gus Grissom, and the portrayal of Jack Ridley as a lightweight sidekick, but the flying scenes were breathtaking.

The book was also great.

 

[Number_35]

The book was also great.

Agreed, Tom Wolfe was an outstanding writer. I wish, though, he had issued a revised version after Liberty Bell 7 was recovered in July 1999. There was some deformation around the hatch doorway, indicating the capsule had been damaged upon splashdown. This damage, rather than Grissom panicking (as strongly suggested in both the book and the movie) was likely the cause of the hatch blowing prematurely.

 

[Exhaustgases]

A series than ran in 56 to 57 called Air power. I guess it was 58 or so repeats I watched as a youngin.

 

[Speedy3861]

A TV series that ran from 1984-85 Call to Glory, set in the 60's, Craig T Nelson starring, about tensions during The Cold War. A lot of excellent U2 and SR-71 footage.

 

[JimPghPA]

There was a very realistic TV series called 12 O'Clock High. My dad was in the US Army Air Core and trained on several bombers as a bombadier and all other positions except pilot or co-pilot ( he did not have good visual depth perception ). He was in training on B29's when WWII ended, so he never was deployed. Many evenings he and I watched 12 O'Clock High on TV.

One time he told me that the base he trained at in Texas had to fly the flag at half mask one day for each person killed in training. After the war ended, they had to keep flying the flag at half mask for a year and a half to honor all the dead in their backlog.