…and I must say, it was totally AWESOME!!! True, the special effects weren’t that special, and the movie is packed with more cliches than any other war movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s still totally worth it. The little nuances are what do it. Germans working on the engine of a Gotha while in flight, banging on a jammed gun with a hammer, etc. It’s all there. Sure, there’s innacuraces- a “timed” mid-air collision, taking down a Zepplin by stalling and falling into it, and the fact that all the Fokker triplanes are red. But if you overlook that, it’s still an awesome experience. It makes me want to go out and build a biplane now…
Best line of the movie: “They’ve spotted a group of Fokkers!” (Say it out loud…) [;)]
(Note: Pardon any innacuracies and abrupt subject jumps in this post. It could be because I’m so stoked about this movie, or the 88 oz of Mountain Dew I had during the course of it. Maybe both.)
Congrats Lucien, You have just tasted the high exhileration of “stringbag fever.” I must say I have seen it twice already. I am just as excited about its arrival after sooooo many years of doing without any celluloid with WWI aviation as its subject material. The great thing is that kits of the 1914-1918 era are at an all time high. Model On!
Note; any rush you feel from a 88oz Mtn Dew can’t compare to a Nieuport 17 doing an Immelmann at angels seven! Cock and lock your Vickers, guess whats for dinner, blackened Falcon.
I look forward to seeing it. I hope I can get over the red Fokkers. Everytime I see the commercial I find myself talking at the nearest person saying “They werent ALL red” [(-D]
Can’t wait to see it this weekend. Since its my birthday, the family will have to subject themselves to my choice of a movie! But I’ll try to refrain myself in making comments about any inaccuracies - I’m geeky enough already.
“A” scheme is Cassidy’s machine N1723. The red striping on the engine cowling is reminiscent of No. 1 Sqdn RFC in about August,1917. The “W” on Cassidy’s top wing was copied from Harold Willis’ SPAD VII of the original Lafayette Escadrille. In the line up image at the beginning of this article you can see that they tried to employ every cowling marking variation they could on the Nieuports. The Cassidy character was the embodiment of Raoul Lufbery from the original Lafayette Escadrille. The markings of R. Soubiran were replaced with the two tone inverted “V” with the #2 at its interior. These personal emblems on the Nieuports were vinyl stick-ons and were changed regularly. Also it is unknown as to what machine this serial (N1723) was originally assigned to in 1917, but probably a Nieuport 17 acording to where it falls in the production batch.
Thank you for sharing Steve, very nice job, especially with the rigging, but why do the engine, cowling inside, machine guns and tires all appear to be the same color?
In my personal collection I have both Howard Hughes’ “Hell’s Angels” and “The Blue Max”,a nd they are both very well made.
Basically, Flyboys appears to be a re-make of Hells Angels with both a Gotha bomber and a Zepplin ramming and a squadron of all-red Fokkers in the movie, only with American instead of British flyers being depicted.
Historically, though, I wouldn’t worry it much.
To have been a bit more accurate, I would have like to seen SPAD’s and Fokker D-7’s facing off.
In the Hughes movie, they had a flight of Thomas-Morse scouts led by an SE5-A agasinst a squadron of red Fokker D-7’s. I have yet to figure out what the actual bomber they use to depict a captuerd Gotha, but it does strongly resemble one.
There was never a Zepplin in WWI that was brought down by a ramming from an allied plane (one was literally bombed out of the air, though).
Most were shot down at night, which became simple once the British discovered all you had to do was pour all your bullets into a single spot in those monsters and when the bullets sparking off the internal structure would ignite the hydrogen gas leaking form damaged gas cells, that was all it needed to finish it.
There is not a single record of a single encounter with any American flyers for the famous Red Baron during that period either.
Nearly all his victories were British, as they were the least trained flyers in that war, the majority being the typically stable sluggish pre-Sopwith British Factory types that were slow handling, thusly becoming the easiest to shoot down.
Hey Tom, It maybe your monitor? But the Vickers and Lewis were bare but not bright metal I used a black wash to highlight the details. The inside of the cowling is “coated” with a dirty tan patina I use for castor oil exhaust. The wheels are a light gull gray with a black and brown wash. many of the WWI aviation tires had a minimum amount of carbon black in the rubber. For more images see;
In the movie, they actually hand-start the monster, using six men joining hands to pull the prop of a single engine. Appearantly, this was also a safety factor, in case a single man stumbled and fell, the rest could pull him clear of the giant prop.
