Just watched TORA TORA TORA!!-Now i want a warbird..

In the film, the American warbirds were P-40s and the Japanese were Hollywood Zeros/Vals (T6/SNJ with a cosmetic change)

No Corsairs at Pearl.

Don

Great Planes used to sell a Hollywood Zero, I can't remember if it was an ARF or not.

As I recall it was a kit. But memory fades :-)

I always watch Tora, Tora, Tora followed by Midway, So it has a happy ending :-)

Pearl Harbor was too much a bad "Top Gun meets Flight of the Intruder in WWII" for me. They could have saved almost 45 minutes by doing away with the mock historical garbage.

It is a fair trade my wife cannot sit down and watch Tora all the way though and I can't sit through Pearl. She hates docudramas most of the time and I hate Harliquin Romances passed off as Historical fiction.

Speaking of great movies, I just picked up the 20th Ann. copy of The Right Stuff. Does anyone make or have plans for a X-1 slope glider or electric? The good old days of my youth when America's heros really were heros and one was proud to be an American. Put the spurs to her Chuck!

Bob Ruth AMA 720565

I built a Top Flite P-40 kit (60 size) and absolutely loved building the kit! It does not take too much skill to build. Only one tip for you: Don't use old radio equipment or your beautiful plane will crash on the 4th flight. Or at least that's what happened to me :( But the first three flights were great. The plane was very stable and the split flaps were awesome! I only wish I had a little more power than my 91 4-stroke for aerobatics. Hope that helps.

-Jonathan-

Actually it was a Top Flite kit. I've seen them pop up every now and then in ebay.

Don

A good movie if you like Spitfires is Dark Blue World, I liked it better than Pearl Harbor.

I'll second that "Dark Blue World"....what a terrific film!

"Pearl Harbor" turned to absolute crap after the funerals and stuff. And having the star make it all the way through to operational status being nearly illiterate due to dyslexia (sp?) is just dumb. They didn't even need that scene.

John

The first sour note in 'Pearl Harbor' was the opening scenes in a 30's Srearman biplane with self-starting which was totally misplaced in the early-20s time setting depicted (didn't the producers even have a clue, or did they presume aviation-savvy people are in the great minority?). If you could get past that, the romance fiction was at least tolerable and even 'tear-jerky' (ala 'Titanic'), and the graphics were great. Bill (oc)

Go check out a rather older one called Battle of Britain. They used virtually every flying Spit and Hurricane available for that one.

And every available Heinkle 111 then in flying condition.

'Mosquito Squadron' was another great movie. Bill (oc)

If were doing a list, don't forget Twelve O'Clock High

Bob Ruth

And I saw parts of it being filmed, in Sussex, 1960s. I was very young, of course ;)

I just picked up a DVD of "Battle of Britian" at compusa from their bargain bin at 9.99.

IIRC, "Piece of Cake" is pretty good, its a series from PBS, but kinda spendy if you want to buy it. Its a battle of Britain TV movie series, but naturally, is forced to use later marks of spits.

John

According to legend (maybe someone else can verify), in filming 'Thrity Seconds Over Tokyo', a large refinery fire was going on in Oakland CA, which was conveniently used as backdrop in a bombing-run sequence.

Another great movie was 'Dambusters', except the explosion plumes at the damsites looked highly faked.

Bill (oc)

Bill, It's hard to get a real looking explosion in a 1/100 scale especially in the

Dambusters

All these are in my collection...some good, some great airplane movies!

Don