It's showing here in Appleton, Wisconsin too. I saw it last Saturday. The
aerial footage was pretty cool, with the exception of occasional use of
computer generated aircraft in some of the scenes. But then again, my wife
didn't pick up on those even though they stuck out like a sore thumb to me.
Maybe five years of working on F-4Cs and F-4Es and watching fighters in
action day after day made me more sensitive to how they really look in
flight. The aerial shot of the Nellis Ramp with the movie's logo "painted"
on it cracked me up too. It wasn't until the camera got close to the logo
that it became apparent that the logo was computer generated too. I also
got a laugh at all the scenes of crew chiefs "marshalling their aircraft"
while other folks walked past them. If there really had been a fighter
taxiing out of its spot, those folks wouldn't have been walking by the crew
chief like that.
There were some scenes I wish had been expanded on. I was excited to see
the scene of Israeli F-16 crewmembers, including a female, getting into
their Vipers, but that was the last we saw of them. The two B-1s entering
the range in formation at high altitude was cool, but seeing one flying
across the range at the speed of heat using terrain following would've
been so much cooler. Did anyone else notice the two cargo parachutes
colliding and one chute collapsing during the C-17 airdrop?
I was lucky enough to be able to ride along on two C-141B Red Flag sorties
back in 1989. I still have a T-shirt I bought at Nellis with a picture of
a C-141B and the phrase "Hugging the ground, praying not to be found". We
flew nap of the earth in those big monster jets, and it was amazing how
much yanking and banking they did. Terrain masking was their only defense.
On one flight, our Flight Engineer got airsick and left the flightdeck to
toss his cookies. I had a barf bag out and ready, but managed to keep
from using it. I vividly recall flying up a ravine with rock strewn
cliffs not too far off both wingtips and several hundred feet above us.
We crossed over one ridge line with a road along the top, and a lady got
out of her light blue station wagon and watched us fly over her. We were
low enough that I could've picked her out of a lineup. One thing alluded
to but not talked about openly in the movie is how many people get killed
every year during Red Flags. On one of my C-141B sorties, we had an
officer from Nellis riding along. As we reached our push time and started
descending down onto the range, he pointed out a hill below us covered
with sparkles. He told us that the sparkles were sun glinting off the
wreckage of a B-52 that had clipped the hilltop a few weeks before. There
were no survivors. I also had a friend who had worked on F-4G Wild
Weasels at George AFB, who got "volunteered" to help clean up the wreckage
of a Weasel that had had a controlled flight into terrain accident during
a Red Flag sortie. He told me he found an aircrew boot with the foot
still inside it. When I worked on F-4s we used to get safety magazines
that described accidents and I recall there were always a number of them
at Red Flags.
I also was able to visit Nellis and walk the ramp photographing all of the
participanting aircraft of several Red Flags in 1982 and 1983 while I was
stationed at George AFB, California. This movie brought back some good
memories and despite its faults I give it a passing score. It is worth
seeing for sure, in my opinion.
Scott Wison