Here's a link to a site with some of the aircraft Sopwith built.. quite a few Camel shots amongst others.
Posted on 09/24/2006 7:15:44 PM PDT by oyez
(I havn't posted a topic in years so please bear with me.)
We finally get a story of good American volunteer-ism, comradeship and adventure without the pacifist claptrap. This is the kind of war movie the public has been asking for for sometime. I'm not a movie expert but it is in the spirit of Howard Hughes's "Hell's Angels", but not as classic. It is done in an acceptable context that schools could use as video material. There is no bad language just the pain and horror of war.
I have not read any reviews of the movie, but I can predict the critics will call it another shallow, unrealistic piece of "America saves the world" genera.
Lafayette Escadrille did not save France or anyone else, it gave the French the assurance the Americans were kindred in spirit of the price of freedom.
I sometimes regret America ever got the ball rolling by joining in WWI. Had we not, the war would have ended in 1920. The armistice would have been written with the same mistakes and with seeds for the next war. America would have been spared of the casualties, the expense, the depression of the '30's, and the devastation of the Spanish flu.
Then again we wouldn't have had the dress rehearsal for WWII.
I fear that yet within a few years the clarion call will go out for "America to save us all" once again.
I invite comments form FR. Most are more eloquent than I.
My FUBAR. Thanx
Here's a link to a site with some of the aircraft Sopwith built.. quite a few Camel shots amongst others.
Indeed they do maneuvers that an F-15 cannot do. They have far less wing loading than an F-15 and can turn much, much more tightly.
Haven't seen it, I'm sure there is plenty that IS inaccurate.
For one thing, the overwhelming majority of air-to-air kills were ambushes where the victim never saw their attacker. Dogfights were rare and aces got to be aces by avoiding them.
However, that doesn't make for exciting action scenes.
George Peppard at his finest.
The Lafayette Escadrille had an effect that echoed far beyond the First World War. The experiences of the Escadrille led directly to the development of American air power, which, while artificially retarded by liberals and other peacenik types (from the nothing new under the sun department), lead directly to our aircraft and pilot superiority in WW2 - and since.
If it wasn't for the Escadrille and those they inspired, America would probably have been very weak in aerial technology at the opening of WW2 (since the prevailing wisdom was to invest in battleships).
Thanks. I was considering the movie but wanted a personal viewpoint outside of the professional critics. Now I will go see it while it is in the theatres.
Its not the rate of turn that bothers me so much as all the climbing straight up and other high performance maneuvers that these aircraft seem to perform in the movie. The Fokker D7 biplane which entered service after the Fokker triplane that EVERY german flies in this movie could climb straight up for a few seconds. This astonishing manuever was one of the reasons that turning over this aircraft to the allies was part of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles that ended WW1.
The Fokker triplane was very manueverable but quite slow even for the time. Only about 300 of them were ever made and production ended had ended in May 1918.
The Sopwith Camel could turn very tightly to the right thanks to the gyroscopic effect of its rotary engine. The whole engine turned around its crankshaft and made it VERY tricky to fly. It was a sluggish turner at best to the left.
No, Jasta 11 (Richtofen's first squadron command) also adopted red livery, as did many units in Jagdgeschwader 1 (his "flying circus"). Only the Richtofen-flown planes were *completely* red, though.
So am I.
And I will watch it!
Me too, and ditto!
You might want to give them the benefit of the doubt - they may have had enough airspeed to go vertical from an earlier dive, or the camera angle may have made an Immelman Turn look like a straight ballistic climb.
Either way, "Boom and Zoom" was a reality of air combat in WW1. Just not as fast as we do it today.
Hear, hear!! I agree. I was simply pointing out there was nothing new in Americans volunteering. Period. But thanks for bringing up more info about the Lafayette Escadrille. That is most welcome.
I don't think there was ever a Jasta completely outfitted with Triplanes, though....
1. The first 30 minutes of the movie sort of PLODS.
2. The standard, "The Huns are sooooooo nasty...!"-BS was trotted out again. Hey folks, this is WWI, plenty of carnage on both sides, but no HOLOCAUST, OK...? So quit with the "nasty, blue-eyed pilot who machine guns every helpless guy" schtick....
I still tought it was an excellent film --just heaps better than any of the other crap they've got in there (and I did take glimpses of the other pictures in there, and they totally sucked).
I hate to say it, but the wrong side won World War I.
Or, rather, both sides lost. There's a reason some historians refer to the Great War as "the Suicide of the West"...
Blessed Emperor Karl von Habsburg, pray for us!
Oh, yes indeed. That was an exceedingly well-cast film, and I can still close my eyes and see Ursula Andress demonstrating the marvels of a strategically positioned bath towel. Dad and I always called one another when that film turned up on cable (the broadcast TV version was, of course, sanitized).
You might be interested in visiting Jack Hunter's site: Jack Hunter's books. Print copies of The Blue Max are tough to find, and the *subsequent* books (unlike the end of the movie, in the book, Bruno Stachel is not killed in the monoplane) are extremely rare. Get 'em while you can.
Sorry, I'm just not going to waste my time on this one in the theatre or dvd. Get the planes to maneuver correctly and I'm in. Blue Max is a great film, got that on DVD. You just have to skip the Ursula Andress chapters.
I still play some Red Baron 3d on my puter though, the flight sim community is very good at supporting this old WW1 flight sim.
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