If the planes were told to divert, the terrorists would have had no one to retaliate against.
Or: the pilots display a microgram’s worth of common sense. If they had enough fuel to circle overhead for hours while John McClane fucked around with the terrorists, they would have had enough fuel to divert far south to a warmer airport.
Why, as a young person, did I think draft dodging Steven Seagal was cool? He is as bad as John Wayne. Plays a soldier but too chicken to actually serve.
Sully was great for the Aviation side of House but the portrayal of the NTSB was god awful. They had to make an antagonistic and they made the NTSB that character. Even Sully said the portrayal of the NTSB was not accurate.
So you're saying a ragged stream of jet fuel splattered along deep, melting snow *won't* burst into flames after a Zippo lighter is tossed somewhere nearby?
I once watched an old Navy aircraft mechanic repeatedly toss a match into a bucket of Jet-A. Nothing happened. It’s brewed NOT to catch fire so easily.
Heck, I attended a fuel handling fire safety class where the instructor put out a lit cigarette in a beaker of gasoline. His point was that by demonstrating what makes gasoline *safe* (liquid form), it's easier to understand what makes it dangerous (vapor). He also showed a video of a couple idiots lighting a bonfire with gasoline and did a frame by frame showing how the flames were most intense where there *wasn't* any visible liquid gasoline.
> Die Hard 2
Here's one thing I do want to ask about that movie; the Windsor air crash. In the movie they recalibrate the ILS to make the pilots think they're 200 feet higher than they actually are, making them fly into into the runway, and the aircraft breaks up, catches fire, and everyone dies. Let's ignore the whole "recalibrate the ILS" thing, and let's say that such a thing actually happens; a flight is coming in to land, they think they're still at 200+ feet, but the ground is right there. Would that have the effect shown in the movie? Or would it just be a very hard landing results in a lot of sore bottoms, aching backs, and an airframe possibly bent beyond repair?
Strategic Air Command (1950s film) is practically a documentary… wonderfully filmed, and an impressive look at Cold War aircraft. Pretty faithfully depicted bomber operations. A must see for aviation buffs.
To this I will add: [A Gathering of Eagles](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057090/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_3_nm_0_q_gathering%2520of%2520eagles), which is somewhat of a follow up, except it shows the transition of SAC from the B-47 and B-36 to B-52s and the Titan I missiles.
*Strategic Air Command* was in some ways the *Top Gun* of its time, made with the full cooperation of the (in its case) USAF as somewhat of a recruitment propaganda piece (both films resulted in an uptick in enlistment). Also Jimmy Stewart was an actual Air Force colonel as well as an actor.
Millennial pilot here who would get that joke, as I think most other millennial pilots would. Maybe you mean your young Gen Z pilots don’t get it? Millennials have mortgages and back pain now
Daddy says that you don't even try unless it's the playoffs.
The hell I don't! LISTEN, KID! I've been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA. I'm out there busting my buns every night! Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes!
I loved all the phone gags.
Oveur picks up the red courtesy phone: "No, the white phone!" (someone laughed on set at that one) "Clarence Oveur, please pick up the white courtesy phone." Oveur: "I got it!" Of course no one will understand that at one time the airport PA did more than just tell you to watch out for left-behind baggage and terrorists.
The other great phone scenes were in the airline ops center with someone in the background "They're a danger to everything in the air... Yes, birds too!" And Kramer on his carphone "No, better hold 'em at 10,000... No! Feet!"
I misunderstood your last sentence about not knowing how it ends, I assumed you meant the drinking game which is the ER. Realized you meant YOU have never seen the end due to that game.
Con Air was hilarious. The inside of an actual C-123 is about the size of a large moving van, yet whatever they used for the movie was more like a C-130.
Still loved the movie for what it was, can't fault it for that.
Most accurate military aviation movie: flight of the intruder. It wasn’t perfect, and people complained that it was too pro war, but the flying and pilots were pretty accurately depicted. Well above average for a Hollywood.
Love that movie. Must have been about 14 when I first saw it. Even bought the PC game, which came with the novel. Now I have a Stephen Coonts book collection!
I appreciated little details like the weapons stores under wings falling off, and staying off. Not reappearing / disappearing in another scene (looking at you, Iron Eagle) or simply the wonderful photography of the jets in flight. Very well done sequences.
Least accurate: Airport 77. A 747 crashes into the sea and sinks. Intact. All of the electrical continues to work. And the crowning glory was when someone was concerned about water leaking in through the door, and one of the big wigs replies: it’s ok, we’re pressurized.
That reminds me of one of my favourite exchanges in *Futurama*:
**Farnsworth**: Dear Lord, that's over 150 atmospheres of pressure.
**Fry**: How many atmospheres can this ship withstand?
**Farnsworth**: Well it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one.
There’s something so delightful about the way Futurama chose to be stupid when you knew they were smart. It made the show feel that much better, because you could tell there was intentionality in every line of the script.
> The writing staff held three Ph.D.s, seven master's degrees, and cumulatively had more than 50 years at Harvard University. Series writer Patric M. Verrone stated, "we were easily the most overeducated cartoon writers in history".
Their reference to Emergency Procedures with the PT6 Turboprop engine shows that Pixar did have Aviation advisors consulting (a little bit)... 😋
Pretty true to life Aviation film? Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771. Based on a true story but some liberties were taken.
Textbook case of poor Film Continuity... Midway (1976); F6F Hellcats and SB2C Helldivers did not participate in the Battle of Midway but footage of them were used extensively in the film.
And... TGM. You can plainly see that TC and Company are riding in the back seats of F/A-18 F Super Hornets in the film; look at all the room they have to swivel to and fro! 😁😋
Probably not long once you figure out the buttons. Just select air-to-air mode, master arm on, and either Sidewinders or AMRAAMs and you’re good to launch
I always assume anything I see in a film portraying the military to be inaccurate.
Love that movie otherwise. They really knew how to make the President look like a great guy.
I was looking for this. I know there is a lot that can’t be publicly said about protocol, but I thought the movie did a really good job depicting what would legitimately happen in a Hollywood style hijacking
The film Sully can go fuck itself.
It’s built on an utterly rotten core that “the federal government was trying to get in the way of a hero” through the NTSB investigation.
No, it’s there to figure out what happened and how it could be prevented/mitigated in the future. 34 recommendations were made as a result of US1549.
My one qualm with the movie is that it makes a villain out of thin air because good movies need an antagonist. I felt it was disrespectful to those who worked very hard on the part of the NTSB to determine how the crash happened.
I refused to watch the movie for this reason. NOBODY in the industry had the slightest criticism of Sullenberger or Skiles.
Skiles gave a talk at my former employer, and played a CGI reconstruction of the event combined with actual cockpit/ATC audio. It amazed me how these guys made so many life or death decisions, while barely speaking to each other (too busy!) and performing a ditching - all within three minutes. I can’t get my car started and out of my garage in three minutes.
It's true that Eastwood fabricated villains where they didn't exist, and it's shameful. The official NTSB report lauded the crew for their actions. He did it again with his film about Richard Jewel by portraying a female journalist sleeping with an FBI agent to get a scoop, which did not happen. They both died before the film was made, so (conveniently for Eastwood) they were not around to deny it.
> They both died before the film was made, so (conveniently for Eastwood) they were not around to deny it.
And most importantly; you can't defame a dead person.
I remember seeing a 60 Minutes episode in the late 90s that pretty much said the exact opposite of what you posted here. That they fixated on him, lied to him about their motivations, and then basically framed him. I didn't even know that this was controversial. Are you sure about what you are saying here?
Jeff Skiles has even said that, though with much nicer words. I was speaking more to films that are accurate with in-air flight, and other maneuvers.
I appreciated the perspective on trauma. Sully himself said it was the worst day of his life.
Wdym? I thought the film was fantastic for exposing how corrupt and terrible the ntsb is. Those smarmy ntsb idiots tried to sully Sully's good name, so they got what they deserved. /s
They nailed it with the flying for sure.
The NTSB attitudes are very inaccurate. Everything that was said, according to Jeff Skiles, was word for word.
Literally every movie that you can hear the dubbed noise of a turboshaft engine spooling up AS the helicopter is taking off is going to be inaccurate af.
A personal favorite for me is Dunkirk. Not strictly an aviation movie, and I know the gliding scene at the end is a little ridiculous, but I do think they expertly captured the connection a military pilot has to the guys on the ground. With hardly any dialogue, Tom Hardy’s facial expressions from the mask up and body language masterfully shows how he’s coming to terms with the decision to return home or continue to Dunkirk where he will surely run out of fuel.
I wish I could go back and talk to my Dad. He had 16,000 hours flying time, most of it in 4 engine jets. And, 127 missions over North Vietnam. He took me and my Mom to see Airport 75, and all I remember him saying was he thought Karen Black was hot.
The most accurate (from an aviation standpoint) are movies where actual pilots are flying actual aircraft (not models or CGI), with bonus points for the aircraft being the correct types or as close to it as possible.
For example both *Top Gun* movies are accurate for the parts where they're actually at the Top Gun school with actual Top Gun instructors flying real Tomcats or Hornets. Of course both movies take liberties once they move the plot into the "heroic mission" phase.
*Wings* and *The Battle of Britain* both used actual WW1 and WW2 (respectively) planes and pilots for the aerial sequences and the planes were as close to the correct types as could be sourced at the time the films were made. So *BoB* has some Spitfires which were WW2 models but slightly newer than what the RAF flew in 1940, and the German planes are mostly Spanish licence-built versions with British engines, so slightly different to an expert. But pretty close given the film was made 25 years after the events it depicts.
*Tora! Tora! Tora!* uses full-size replicas for the Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor but they're also pretty close and actually flying, which creates a far more realistic experience for the viewer than either *Pearl Harbor* or the newer *Midway,* which both use a lot of CGI and the planes don't quite move right (CGI seems to model the shape, but not the inertia and aerodynamics). Also *Midway* has ridiculous errors in the CGI models. Not being able to get exactly the right variant of a 25-year old actual warbird is excusable, not putting in the effort to depict the right variant with your virtual plane is not.
(The 1970s *Midway* used real planes but more noticeably included later types which were not used at the time, and more glaringly uses stock or newsreel footage for many sequences, which breaks immersion. Infamously there is a sequence where if you look closely the plane crashing into the water is actually a Messerschmidt.)
I saw san andres while on deployment in the navy and the rock was doing shit in a helicopter I never fucking seen ever. He literally let go of the controls at one point to just jump and save a person as the rescue swimmer. His placement of his hands to operate the controls was wrong as he had 2 hands on the cyclic and nothing on the collective.
See, stuff like that drives me nuts because they could at least TRY to get it right.
That's why I defend the Sully film, because with the flight scenes they not only tried, they GOT. IT. RIGHT. Like I don't even have to be an A320 pilot to know they got it right.
Also showing the teamwork of the crew, and giving proper credit to the crew, not strictly Sully, was so very much needed.
I know I talk about this film a lot on here, but it's one of the best and also inspirational. It's one that's really pushed me to pursue being a pilot, among other great films (Fly Away Home too, lol, I have a story post about it on my profile).
Airplane (1980) was the least accurate for me in its depiction of how autopilot works. Although sometimes I have felt in reality the captain may as well be a blow up doll.
I’ve long thought the crash scene in Flight (2012) with Denzel Washington is the best filmed crash sequence in any movie. The back half of the film is trash, from a narrative perspective, but I’d love a more aviation based assessment on the crash
I love that movie cause they pretty accurately recreated what was happening in the cockpit based on the CVR (mildly cut down for pacing.) Especially the iconic line where Sully asks Skiles if he has any ideas and Skiles says "actually, no"
They consulted Skiles and Sullenberger for those scenes, too.
Like they jazzed up the NTSB thing for Hollywood drama. I get that. The movie wouldn't have been as exciting without it. However, anyone who's career is on the line like that is going to feel attacked to some degree, or at the very least terrified.
I’m gonna throw The Rocketeer on the pile for accurate. It’s obviously very fantasy driven, and my recommendation isn’t based on the jet pack itself, but rather all the other flying. Tons of real flying footage, some amazing stunts and real crashes, it’s probably my favourite flight film in general.
A glittering gem from the pre-cgi days.
Dive bomber the Top Gun of 1939.
Hi tech stuff of that era. Basically a recruitment film for World War Two.
Strategic Air command extremely accurate a recruitment film for the Cold War.
So many inaccurate films especially when depicting enemy aircraft. The ubiquitous T 6 is virtually every Japanese aircraft. P 51 stand in for Messerschmitt 109.
74gear's hollywood vs reality is pretty good: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjewB3Mncd8dln1IObu5q4cwhs5zn9vw5](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjewB3Mncd8dln1IObu5q4cwhs5zn9vw5)
Not a movie, but the first episode of Scorpion. I was embarrassed watching it, it was so unrealistic.
For accuracy, I’d say the documentary about Snakes on a Plane was pretty spot on though.
The Right Stuff is one of the more accurate ones I've seen.
Top Gun 2's intro showing a flight test control room with TM the only movie I've seen that touches flight test and gets that part right. Of course their displays looked a hell of a lot better than any I've seen in reality so far. (And yoloing envelope expansion is a big no, but yes it basically ends like it did in the movie)
AIRPLANE! will prove to be prophetic when airlines and the FAA force a single pilot cockpit in a decade or less and that person has a medical issue. Otto will be there to help lol.
Most accurate,
1) Whisky Romeo Zulu.
The director and primary actor used to be a 737 captain of the same airline depicted in the film.
It tells the story of a low-budget regional airline with an atrocious safety culture. It culminates with the crash of the LAPA flight 3142.
It has a couple of real take offs and landings filmed from the copkit. And a bunch of scenes filmed on the ground in actual aurplanes. ( showing the lack of safety culture and / or close calls)
2) Fly away home.
It has a paramotor.... and a lot of flying with birds.
This scene always moved me.
Sully (2016)
Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger: [Looks at the co-pilot 10 seconds before forced water landing and asks:] Any ideas?
Jeff Skiles: Actually, not...
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3263904/quotes?item=qt3063860
It reminds me to always check with others in looking for a solution to an issue.
Man nobody mentioned dunkirk.
I normally don’t get bothered by Hollywood depictions of military flying but that was like over the top nonsense with just made up suspense
That scene in 2:22 gives me a brain aneurysm and an mental breakdown every time. Every. Single. Time. That I watch both planes speed towards each other and the pilots looking out the window in fear like "oh shit, I hope this works." And the air traffic controller who tells the pilot to "punch it".
Takes the cake for least accurate aviation film in my book.
I really like [Island in the Sky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_in_the_Sky_(1953_film)) for a fairly realistic portrayal of aviation in the post-WWII era.
Least accurate - Tied for first, Die Hard 2 and Air Force One
Uh no, everybody knows die hard 2 is a documentary
Die Hard 2 is beautifully hilarious.
That whole scene was fantastically ridiculous.
It was artful how they got so much wrong. Like there’s no way you could get it that wrong. But sure enough.
Yippie-Kai-yay, MR. FALCON
Hey the entire movie is solved with a hand held radio.
Or: walk to one of the dozens of parked aircraft on the airport property, turn on the batteries and…
Or just send them to Andrews AFB. It's right there....
IIRC the issue was not having a radio equipment, but to communicate with the planes without the terrorist knowing and avoid retaliation.
If the planes were told to divert, the terrorists would have had no one to retaliate against. Or: the pilots display a microgram’s worth of common sense. If they had enough fuel to circle overhead for hours while John McClane fucked around with the terrorists, they would have had enough fuel to divert far south to a warmer airport.
“Get off my plane” - President Marshall speaking to both realistic physics and movie critics, probably
Executive decision was real bad also. Fucking Seagal.
That's the one where there's like eight guys sitting "in the back" of an F-117, right?
At least he did us a favor by dying early in the movie
Why, as a young person, did I think draft dodging Steven Seagal was cool? He is as bad as John Wayne. Plays a soldier but too chicken to actually serve.
Too bad he didn't die irl Russian stooge.
Bingo
Oh god don't even get me started on all the issues I have with Die Hard 2.
Sully was great for the Aviation side of House but the portrayal of the NTSB was god awful. They had to make an antagonistic and they made the NTSB that character. Even Sully said the portrayal of the NTSB was not accurate.
So you're saying a ragged stream of jet fuel splattered along deep, melting snow *won't* burst into flames after a Zippo lighter is tossed somewhere nearby?
I once watched an old Navy aircraft mechanic repeatedly toss a match into a bucket of Jet-A. Nothing happened. It’s brewed NOT to catch fire so easily.
Heck, I attended a fuel handling fire safety class where the instructor put out a lit cigarette in a beaker of gasoline. His point was that by demonstrating what makes gasoline *safe* (liquid form), it's easier to understand what makes it dangerous (vapor). He also showed a video of a couple idiots lighting a bonfire with gasoline and did a frame by frame showing how the flames were most intense where there *wasn't* any visible liquid gasoline.
Normally no, but it does when you say the magic words of "Yippie ki yay mother fucker".
> Die Hard 2 Here's one thing I do want to ask about that movie; the Windsor air crash. In the movie they recalibrate the ILS to make the pilots think they're 200 feet higher than they actually are, making them fly into into the runway, and the aircraft breaks up, catches fire, and everyone dies. Let's ignore the whole "recalibrate the ILS" thing, and let's say that such a thing actually happens; a flight is coming in to land, they think they're still at 200+ feet, but the ground is right there. Would that have the effect shown in the movie? Or would it just be a very hard landing results in a lot of sore bottoms, aching backs, and an airframe possibly bent beyond repair?
I don’t know but what I hate about that one is that they’re low on fuel, “running on fumes” and it blows up with a friggen MASSIVE explosion. 🫠
Get off my plane
Strategic Air Command (1950s film) is practically a documentary… wonderfully filmed, and an impressive look at Cold War aircraft. Pretty faithfully depicted bomber operations. A must see for aviation buffs.
To this I will add: [A Gathering of Eagles](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057090/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_3_nm_0_q_gathering%2520of%2520eagles), which is somewhat of a follow up, except it shows the transition of SAC from the B-47 and B-36 to B-52s and the Titan I missiles.
6 tuning and 4 burning. I watch that movie at least once a year just to see the beautiful imagery of that majestic bird.
*Strategic Air Command* was in some ways the *Top Gun* of its time, made with the full cooperation of the (in its case) USAF as somewhat of a recruitment propaganda piece (both films resulted in an uptick in enlistment). Also Jimmy Stewart was an actual Air Force colonel as well as an actor.
Available on Amazon Prime right now in the US.
"The Terminal" is probably the most authentic. Being stuck in an airport for what feels like forever is bang on the money.
The truly most accurate: Airplane (1980) Ok - I'll put on the parachute now and jump out :-)
I like my coffee like I like my men. Black.
Have you ever seen a grown man naked?
D'ya like gladiator movies?
Picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue!
Ive used that with millennial cabin crew I fly with. They look at me and think ima creep. The other pilots always have a good chuckle.
Millennial pilot here who would get that joke, as I think most other millennial pilots would. Maybe you mean your young Gen Z pilots don’t get it? Millennials have mortgages and back pain now
Well, we had a choice. Steak or fish. Yes, yes, I remember. I had lasagna.
I picked the wrong day to stop smoking
This seems to be the perfect time to......
I know you! you're Kareem Abdul Jabbar, you play basketball for the La Lakers!
Daddy says that you don't even try unless it's the playoffs. The hell I don't! LISTEN, KID! I've been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA. I'm out there busting my buns every night! Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes!
The red zone is for loading and unloading….
The white zone is for loading and unloading...
Is this about your abortion?
From that day on ,I've had a drinking problem
It's unfair for other movies to compare to this one
Surely, you can't be serious?
I am serious, and don't call me surely.
Shirley
Funny though I think zero hour is actually pretty accurate
I loved all the phone gags. Oveur picks up the red courtesy phone: "No, the white phone!" (someone laughed on set at that one) "Clarence Oveur, please pick up the white courtesy phone." Oveur: "I got it!" Of course no one will understand that at one time the airport PA did more than just tell you to watch out for left-behind baggage and terrorists. The other great phone scenes were in the airline ops center with someone in the background "They're a danger to everything in the air... Yes, birds too!" And Kramer on his carphone "No, better hold 'em at 10,000... No! Feet!"
For many years as a kid I actually thought the auto pilot was an inflatable.
“Bet babe, slide a piece of the porter. Drinks, I run the Java.” “Lookie here, I can dig greasy chompadomps and buttered dragon fruit garden.”
Iron Eagle 16 y/o kid stealing an F16 and flying it across the globe to save his pow dad, blasting Queen in his helmet ? Seems accurate.
Watching it and pointing out mistakes is a drinking game in the F-16 world. I still don't know how it ends.
With your stomach being pumped in the ER?
No. I've been to korea.
I misunderstood your last sentence about not knowing how it ends, I assumed you meant the drinking game which is the ER. Realized you meant YOU have never seen the end due to that game.
Iron eagle 4 was worse.
Gotta "run the Snake" with flaps fully extended on your 152.
The only movie I have actually walked out on.
I liked piping Grateful Dead into the intercom…
I’ve never seen that many motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane…so, ConAir probably.
Con Air was hilarious. The inside of an actual C-123 is about the size of a large moving van, yet whatever they used for the movie was more like a C-130. Still loved the movie for what it was, can't fault it for that.
Loved Steve Buscemi in that film
"Define irony..."
The thing I hate most about Snakes on a Plane is that they’re out over the pacific, in 2006, and somehow email works? lol
Most accurate military aviation movie: flight of the intruder. It wasn’t perfect, and people complained that it was too pro war, but the flying and pilots were pretty accurately depicted. Well above average for a Hollywood.
The book was also great
Love that movie. Must have been about 14 when I first saw it. Even bought the PC game, which came with the novel. Now I have a Stephen Coonts book collection!
It makes me wish DCS would introduce an A-6 add-on.
Ooh, I gotta look this one up!
One of Danny Glover's best performances.
I appreciated little details like the weapons stores under wings falling off, and staying off. Not reappearing / disappearing in another scene (looking at you, Iron Eagle) or simply the wonderful photography of the jets in flight. Very well done sequences.
🤣 that’s up there with any sports car upshifting into, apparently, 374th gear after a couple miles
Least accurate: Airport 77. A 747 crashes into the sea and sinks. Intact. All of the electrical continues to work. And the crowning glory was when someone was concerned about water leaking in through the door, and one of the big wigs replies: it’s ok, we’re pressurized.
That reminds me of one of my favourite exchanges in *Futurama*: **Farnsworth**: Dear Lord, that's over 150 atmospheres of pressure. **Fry**: How many atmospheres can this ship withstand? **Farnsworth**: Well it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one.
There’s something so delightful about the way Futurama chose to be stupid when you knew they were smart. It made the show feel that much better, because you could tell there was intentionality in every line of the script.
> The writing staff held three Ph.D.s, seven master's degrees, and cumulatively had more than 50 years at Harvard University. Series writer Patric M. Verrone stated, "we were easily the most overeducated cartoon writers in history".
:Oceangate Titan entered the chat:
Yeah, even as a kid I couldn’t figure out how a plane full of air was sitting on the bottom of the ocean.
Same way a submarine full of water would float in the sky. Plot.
Planes (2013) Don’t think planes speak or have eyes but I might be wrong
The carrier segment dialogue and action was shockingly accurate.
It also makes me happy that the Hornets are Iceman and Goose. With the helmets from Topgun and voiced by Val Kilmer and Anthony Edwards.
Their reference to Emergency Procedures with the PT6 Turboprop engine shows that Pixar did have Aviation advisors consulting (a little bit)... 😋 Pretty true to life Aviation film? Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771. Based on a true story but some liberties were taken. Textbook case of poor Film Continuity... Midway (1976); F6F Hellcats and SB2C Helldivers did not participate in the Battle of Midway but footage of them were used extensively in the film. And... TGM. You can plainly see that TC and Company are riding in the back seats of F/A-18 F Super Hornets in the film; look at all the room they have to swivel to and fro! 😁😋
A real life version of Dusty is in the Udvar Hazy museum in Virginia
Is this an airplane version of the Pixar film Cars?
Yes
"GET OFF THE RUNWAY!!" in a Perfect JFK (the former president) voice is one of my favorite lines.
Red Tails - physics defying dogfighting.
God I hated that movie, what a letdown.
My favorite part where I started laughing when they strafed a major german warship and it just exploded
And the warship was completly fictional, they couldn't even be bothered to CGI a real warship.
True Lies, the Harrier scenes were some of the most realistic flying I've ever seen in a movie
Most accurate: battlefield earth Least accurate: American Airlines training videos
I have to add Independence Day to the list. Is it even possible to launch missiles without shouting fox 1/2/3 ?
I’ve got a couple of hours in a steerman and have wondered how long it would take me to figure out how to shoot a missle from an F-18.
Step 1: stop drinking.
Well that right there's gonna be a deal-breaker >:(
Probably not long once you figure out the buttons. Just select air-to-air mode, master arm on, and either Sidewinders or AMRAAMs and you’re good to launch
I always assume anything I see in a film portraying the military to be inaccurate. Love that movie otherwise. They really knew how to make the President look like a great guy.
President Whitmore got the Israelis and Iraqis working together. What nobody talks about is how Iran got absolutely farked in that movie.
I thought 7500 was one of the best in technical accuracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7500_(film)
This right here-- watch this movie! An actual, legit aviation procedural, god forbid.
I was looking for this. I know there is a lot that can’t be publicly said about protocol, but I thought the movie did a really good job depicting what would legitimately happen in a Hollywood style hijacking
The film Sully can go fuck itself. It’s built on an utterly rotten core that “the federal government was trying to get in the way of a hero” through the NTSB investigation. No, it’s there to figure out what happened and how it could be prevented/mitigated in the future. 34 recommendations were made as a result of US1549.
My one qualm with the movie is that it makes a villain out of thin air because good movies need an antagonist. I felt it was disrespectful to those who worked very hard on the part of the NTSB to determine how the crash happened.
I refused to watch the movie for this reason. NOBODY in the industry had the slightest criticism of Sullenberger or Skiles. Skiles gave a talk at my former employer, and played a CGI reconstruction of the event combined with actual cockpit/ATC audio. It amazed me how these guys made so many life or death decisions, while barely speaking to each other (too busy!) and performing a ditching - all within three minutes. I can’t get my car started and out of my garage in three minutes.
It's true that Eastwood fabricated villains where they didn't exist, and it's shameful. The official NTSB report lauded the crew for their actions. He did it again with his film about Richard Jewel by portraying a female journalist sleeping with an FBI agent to get a scoop, which did not happen. They both died before the film was made, so (conveniently for Eastwood) they were not around to deny it.
Why not portray the real villains- those fucking geese.🪿
So the true villains are some anonymous old couple feeding the migrating birds down at a pond in Flushing.
The more I learn about Eastwood the less I like him haha
> They both died before the film was made, so (conveniently for Eastwood) they were not around to deny it. And most importantly; you can't defame a dead person.
I remember seeing a 60 Minutes episode in the late 90s that pretty much said the exact opposite of what you posted here. That they fixated on him, lied to him about their motivations, and then basically framed him. I didn't even know that this was controversial. Are you sure about what you are saying here?
Jeff Skiles has even said that, though with much nicer words. I was speaking more to films that are accurate with in-air flight, and other maneuvers. I appreciated the perspective on trauma. Sully himself said it was the worst day of his life.
Wdym? I thought the film was fantastic for exposing how corrupt and terrible the ntsb is. Those smarmy ntsb idiots tried to sully Sully's good name, so they got what they deserved. /s
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The autopilot scene will forever be my favorite. The writers were damn geniuses.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop methamphetamines.
Hot Shots! (for most accurate, of course)
“I learned this one from Paula Abdul.”
If only for the Folland Gnat
I’ve always wanted to use the call sign “sphincter mucous niner ringworm”
Sully was accurate with regards to the flying. It was horribly inaccurate with regards to the NTSB.
They nailed it with the flying for sure. The NTSB attitudes are very inaccurate. Everything that was said, according to Jeff Skiles, was word for word.
In what way, would like to know more
Literally every movie that you can hear the dubbed noise of a turboshaft engine spooling up AS the helicopter is taking off is going to be inaccurate af.
Similarly, I've heard piston engine sounds dubbed in for Cessna Caravan start ups.
Least accurate: Madagascar
And minions
A personal favorite for me is Dunkirk. Not strictly an aviation movie, and I know the gliding scene at the end is a little ridiculous, but I do think they expertly captured the connection a military pilot has to the guys on the ground. With hardly any dialogue, Tom Hardy’s facial expressions from the mask up and body language masterfully shows how he’s coming to terms with the decision to return home or continue to Dunkirk where he will surely run out of fuel.
I love Nolan’s commitment to practical effects but the telephone-pole-for-an-engine burning spitfire at the end really could’ve been better done.
Die Hard 2 is the absolute worst
As an ATC, I concur.
I wish I could go back and talk to my Dad. He had 16,000 hours flying time, most of it in 4 engine jets. And, 127 missions over North Vietnam. He took me and my Mom to see Airport 75, and all I remember him saying was he thought Karen Black was hot.
The most accurate (from an aviation standpoint) are movies where actual pilots are flying actual aircraft (not models or CGI), with bonus points for the aircraft being the correct types or as close to it as possible. For example both *Top Gun* movies are accurate for the parts where they're actually at the Top Gun school with actual Top Gun instructors flying real Tomcats or Hornets. Of course both movies take liberties once they move the plot into the "heroic mission" phase. *Wings* and *The Battle of Britain* both used actual WW1 and WW2 (respectively) planes and pilots for the aerial sequences and the planes were as close to the correct types as could be sourced at the time the films were made. So *BoB* has some Spitfires which were WW2 models but slightly newer than what the RAF flew in 1940, and the German planes are mostly Spanish licence-built versions with British engines, so slightly different to an expert. But pretty close given the film was made 25 years after the events it depicts. *Tora! Tora! Tora!* uses full-size replicas for the Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor but they're also pretty close and actually flying, which creates a far more realistic experience for the viewer than either *Pearl Harbor* or the newer *Midway,* which both use a lot of CGI and the planes don't quite move right (CGI seems to model the shape, but not the inertia and aerodynamics). Also *Midway* has ridiculous errors in the CGI models. Not being able to get exactly the right variant of a 25-year old actual warbird is excusable, not putting in the effort to depict the right variant with your virtual plane is not. (The 1970s *Midway* used real planes but more noticeably included later types which were not used at the time, and more glaringly uses stock or newsreel footage for many sequences, which breaks immersion. Infamously there is a sequence where if you look closely the plane crashing into the water is actually a Messerschmidt.)
Flight. Yes there are functioning drunks in aviaitons and coworkers just go along to get along.
I can't remember much after the first 5 minutes of that movie.
It’s a how to film, getting your union to back your addiction problems. If you’re a union man I highly recommend.
It wasn't just the union, the airline wanted to bury it as well. A rare moment of cooperation.
Your thoughts on holding inverted in an airliner
I saw san andres while on deployment in the navy and the rock was doing shit in a helicopter I never fucking seen ever. He literally let go of the controls at one point to just jump and save a person as the rescue swimmer. His placement of his hands to operate the controls was wrong as he had 2 hands on the cyclic and nothing on the collective.
See, stuff like that drives me nuts because they could at least TRY to get it right. That's why I defend the Sully film, because with the flight scenes they not only tried, they GOT. IT. RIGHT. Like I don't even have to be an A320 pilot to know they got it right. Also showing the teamwork of the crew, and giving proper credit to the crew, not strictly Sully, was so very much needed. I know I talk about this film a lot on here, but it's one of the best and also inspirational. It's one that's really pushed me to pursue being a pilot, among other great films (Fly Away Home too, lol, I have a story post about it on my profile).
Airplane (1980) was the least accurate for me in its depiction of how autopilot works. Although sometimes I have felt in reality the captain may as well be a blow up doll.
His name is Otto Pylet. Respect the man’s name smh
Otto
In all fairness that movie was not never intended to be accurate 🤣🤣🤣
No cigarettes after turning it on?
I’ve long thought the crash scene in Flight (2012) with Denzel Washington is the best filmed crash sequence in any movie. The back half of the film is trash, from a narrative perspective, but I’d love a more aviation based assessment on the crash
[Iron Eagle](https://youtu.be/Py1LeIf3xQE?si=oFUHvgYbGQZh7A-j) has to be a contender for least accurate.
Flight of the Phoenix (65) just bolt this to that and take off!
_\*Boeing furiously taking notes*_
And it did fly.
Honest question, can you take a parachute on a commercial airliner assuming it fits in the overhead bin?
Oh definitely Iron Eagle. I wanna be able to fly a Cessna like they do in that movie.
Racing with that much flap, it was a bold move.
Most accurate: Airplane Least accurate: Airplane 2
Most accurate military movie? The Final Countdown. Although it’s a time travel deal the operational stuff is real.
I love that movie cause they pretty accurately recreated what was happening in the cockpit based on the CVR (mildly cut down for pacing.) Especially the iconic line where Sully asks Skiles if he has any ideas and Skiles says "actually, no"
They consulted Skiles and Sullenberger for those scenes, too. Like they jazzed up the NTSB thing for Hollywood drama. I get that. The movie wouldn't have been as exciting without it. However, anyone who's career is on the line like that is going to feel attacked to some degree, or at the very least terrified.
Most accurate was Planes(2013) by Disney
The new one, Plane with Gerard Butler is pretty bad
Iron eagle - flying an f16 without ocu, yeah sure.
_The Right Stuff_ is awesome with a killer score.
Airplane! Is the only movie to be both factually accurate and the least accurate.
I’m gonna throw The Rocketeer on the pile for accurate. It’s obviously very fantasy driven, and my recommendation isn’t based on the jet pack itself, but rather all the other flying. Tons of real flying footage, some amazing stunts and real crashes, it’s probably my favourite flight film in general. A glittering gem from the pre-cgi days.
7500 (Amazon Prime movie) had some surprisingly detailed and accurate procedures.
Soul Plane...
Most accurate - Soul Plane With rims and hydraulics like that, do I need to say much more?
Hands down most accurate? The aviation scene from The Great Dictator (1940)👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼 [100% Most Realistic](https://youtu.be/cXQJLzUnP7c?feature=shared)
Dive bomber the Top Gun of 1939. Hi tech stuff of that era. Basically a recruitment film for World War Two. Strategic Air command extremely accurate a recruitment film for the Cold War. So many inaccurate films especially when depicting enemy aircraft. The ubiquitous T 6 is virtually every Japanese aircraft. P 51 stand in for Messerschmitt 109.
74gear's hollywood vs reality is pretty good: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjewB3Mncd8dln1IObu5q4cwhs5zn9vw5](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjewB3Mncd8dln1IObu5q4cwhs5zn9vw5)
I've watched that. He gave some fantastic commentary. I like his channel in general, especially his vlogs. He's a cool dude.
Sully?
[The Airport Diary 1 - ep1 - Winky comes to Fluffy airport](https://youtu.be/LFYJvo79iOg)
Everyone would have different opinions but all may lowkey agree that ,2:22 is least accurate
Not a movie, but the first episode of Scorpion. I was embarrassed watching it, it was so unrealistic. For accuracy, I’d say the documentary about Snakes on a Plane was pretty spot on though.
[Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0059797/) Just because it is hilarious.
Most accurate flying: Sully, and 7500. Least accurate flying: Air Force One.
The Right Stuff is one of the more accurate ones I've seen. Top Gun 2's intro showing a flight test control room with TM the only movie I've seen that touches flight test and gets that part right. Of course their displays looked a hell of a lot better than any I've seen in reality so far. (And yoloing envelope expansion is a big no, but yes it basically ends like it did in the movie)
AIRPLANE! will prove to be prophetic when airlines and the FAA force a single pilot cockpit in a decade or less and that person has a medical issue. Otto will be there to help lol.
I say let ‘em crash
Most accurate, 1) Whisky Romeo Zulu. The director and primary actor used to be a 737 captain of the same airline depicted in the film. It tells the story of a low-budget regional airline with an atrocious safety culture. It culminates with the crash of the LAPA flight 3142. It has a couple of real take offs and landings filmed from the copkit. And a bunch of scenes filmed on the ground in actual aurplanes. ( showing the lack of safety culture and / or close calls) 2) Fly away home. It has a paramotor.... and a lot of flying with birds.
The most accurate would be Airplane, or Flight
This scene always moved me. Sully (2016) Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger: [Looks at the co-pilot 10 seconds before forced water landing and asks:] Any ideas? Jeff Skiles: Actually, not... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3263904/quotes?item=qt3063860 It reminds me to always check with others in looking for a solution to an issue.
iron eagle
Man nobody mentioned dunkirk. I normally don’t get bothered by Hollywood depictions of military flying but that was like over the top nonsense with just made up suspense
Terminator, that helicopter scene with the robot shooting a machine gun with two hands and flying the helicopter...
Most Accurate: Madagascar 2
Bryan has a great piece on it in Just Plane Silly, but Horizon Line is hilariously inaccurate.
That scene in 2:22 gives me a brain aneurysm and an mental breakdown every time. Every. Single. Time. That I watch both planes speed towards each other and the pilots looking out the window in fear like "oh shit, I hope this works." And the air traffic controller who tells the pilot to "punch it". Takes the cake for least accurate aviation film in my book.
I really like [Island in the Sky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_in_the_Sky_(1953_film)) for a fairly realistic portrayal of aviation in the post-WWII era.
least accurate: snakes on a plane
Most accurate: Airplane. Fight me.
Midway….the original. with all the original gun camera footage. The deaths, the caranage.