I've been interested in aviation history since I was little, and bad process-screen simulations of supposed aerial doin's drive me crazier than anything else movie-related, unless it's using unbelievably wrong aircraft to portray others. I felt Spaw's pain when he wrote:

>>The use of stock footage also gets ridiculous......Japanese Zero (played by a "Kate" instead) shoots down Corsair but oddly enough a Hellcat crashes. <<

Yeah, and the thing is, the Zero and the Kate are both dressed-up AT-6's, and they're still flying and available for filming. No excuse at all.

>>And how many times are we going to see that B-17 with the wing on fire and breaking off as it drops out of sight? <<

Well, that's a B-24, but yeah--how dry are they going to milk that same old disaster?

Somewhat off topic:

A couple of my _favorite_ aviation-related movies:

1.The Great Waldo Pepper. Not really the greatest story ever told, but all the flying scenes were filmed in the air--Robert Redford actually got out there on the wing, with yawning death below him, no net and no parachute. When he looks scared, he ain't acting. And the Jennies are real Jennies, and the Curtisses are real too, and (miraculously) so are the Sopwith Camel and Fokker Triplane--reproductions, but accurate full-size ones, with real rotary engines. Frank Tallman, bless his departed soul, did the air-work, some of the best ever done.

2. Wings--a silent epic, the very first oscar-winner, and for all the same reasons as above--a hokey story, but when you see it in the air, it's in the air, folks. Hair-raising scenes, 'cause you know you're looking at the real thing. And they really did find some fool pilot to crash that Fokker D-VII into the house, and he even walked away from it.

Jenny the Amelia Earhart wannabe