The forgotten film makers

[Hagar]

The BoB thread got me to thinking about aviation films & the people who can either make or break them. These are the aviation consultants whose job is to find the aircraft & the pilots who fly them. Most are unknown & stay in the background. They rarely get a mention in the credits & if they do it's so far down the list you probably wouldn't notice.

[KnightStryker]

During filming, two of the Forts were intentionally crashed and then scavenged for parts to keep the remaining B-17 flying. . .

What kind of sorry SOB would intentionally crash a B-17?

Sadly we lost touch & I heard my old mate Les Hillman died a few years ago.

Sorry for the loss of your friend.

And I will keep any eye out for the names  John Crewdson and Les Hillman in the credits.

Kevin

[ozzy72]

Interesting stuff Hagar, oddly enough I know RAF Bovingdon well, as I used to practice driving my dads car there when I was preparing for my driving test.
They now hold a market there every Saturday (good for dodgy leather jackets that have appeared on Police 5), and on Sundays they've converted some of the taxi-ways into a race track for Demolition Derbys and Class 4 saloon car racing.
Alas nowadays most of the effects are computer generated. It somehow lacks the passion , although if you do get the chance to see a BBC film called Over Here (its not available on video ) then you do get to see the incredibly talented Ray Hanna, and also features a B-17 (I'm not sure which one though), but the aerial photography is simply awesome.

Ozzy

Ozzy

[Hagar]

What kind of sorry SOB would intentionally crash a B-17?

Unfortunately this is what film makers do. The decision is made by the director, not the aviation consultants. It makes me weep to see rare aircraft like that Mossie in 633 Squadron or classic cars like the Aston Martin in The Italian Job wantonly destroyed (apparently this was impossible to fake) for the sake of a cheap effect. Although the film company owns them & they can treat them as they wish, to me this is senseless vandalism.

[Woodlouse2002]

I think sadly in the days of those films it was a case of "there's plenty more fish in the sea" with those old aircraft. When those films were made there were far more WWII aircraft avaliable to film directors and so they thought they could afford to destroy them. In the making of Memphis Belle, a B17 was destoryed during filming, fair enough, it was an accident, but another one was dismantled after filming because the owner didn't want to pay for it to be taken back to the states.

Also if you think about it, those two B17's were sacrificed for the remaining one. If two wern't scavenged then the 3rd B17 might well have either crashed its self of been broken up after filming.

[ozzy72]

Hagar, good news!!! I was watching Top Gear (this is a few years back), and the Aston Martin and two of the three Minis from the Italian Job had been completely restored to health. Nobody seems to know the location of the third one though

Ozzy (And remember in this country they drive on the wrong side of the road)

[Hagar]

Also if you think about it, those two B17's were sacrificed for the remaining one. If two wern't scavenged then the 3rd B17 might well have either crashed its self of been broken up after filming.

This is quite true Woody. Thanks for pointing that out. Those B-17s would probably have been scrapped in Arizona anyway. As someone mentioned in the BoB thread, the aircraft used in the Battle of Britain film were the basis for the now healthy warbird restoration business in this country.

The producers contracted Group Captain Hamish Mahaddie to track down the aircraft. Mahaddie, who was a highly decorated bomber pilot from the Second World War, now specialised in buying aircraft for film work. Despite the fact that a total of 20,351 Spitfires had been built by the time production ceased in the late 1940s, by the early 1960s just a handful remained that were capable of flying. The making of the Battle of Britain was probably the greatest single factor in turning the tide on the almost total extinction of airworthy Spitfires. Mahaddie scoured the world for all potential Spitfires and those that were capable of looking like operational aircraft were either bought or hired. By the end of 1967, Mahaddie had rounded up 27 (about two squadrons-worth) of Spitfires that could be used for active filming, and a number of others that would provide spares for those capable of flying and which could be used for static shots. Some of the Spitfires had been gradually deteriorating and were given attention: some were made capable of taxiing, while a number were brought back to airworthy condition. Mahaddie tracked down four Hurricanes of which two could fly. There were only six Hurricanes left in the world and one of them was bought as a job lot off a scrap heap in Edmonton by an ex-Canadian Air Force pilot who rebuilt it and flew it across the Atlantic to appear in the film.

[KnightStryker]

Also if you think about it, those two B17's were sacrificed for the remaining one. If two wern't scavenged then the 3rd B17 might well have either crashed its self of been broken up after filming.

Ah once again I am reminded of why I like it here at SimV so much, someone will always point out the good part of a bad situation. Although I don't think that the two were "sacrificed" for the other to survive as much as it just turned out as a bonus that the two that were intentionally crashed were not completely destroyed therefore leaving some useable spare parts.  ;D

Kevin

[Wing Nut]

This is a fascinating subject.  As fro wasting planes, my dad said when he was in the Air Force he would watch them line up old fighters and bombers then go down the line knocking the tails off with a bulldozer.  Makes me sick to think about it.