"B2431" wrote in message
...

Is this Hollywood or did the firing of the guns carry through to the
controls and cause stick shake as the movies depict?

Hollywood thing. I've asked about this from various Finnish war pilots
and they haven't anything like that. For example Colonel Pokela on the
contrary described, that the Messerschmitt 109 fighter was "steady as a
train" when shooting.

jok

Take a look at the instruments on the panel when they do that. No matter
what
the airplane is doing on the screen the indicators always show zero RPM,
straight and level, field elevation, zero climb/dive....etc.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

I remember sitting down with a few of the Doolittle guys at one of their
reunions some years ago. We were watching Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and
having a few beers. Lawson was there. (He wrote the book :-)
He was laughing like hell as Van Johnson skimmed the rice patties with what
was being depicted as Lawson's #7 airplane, the Ruptured Duck. He said,
" Look at how steady I was flying that baby will ya?. That Artificial
Horizon ain't moving an inch is it?" Doolittle smiled back, "You were smooth
all right Ted, but not THAT smooth!!!!" :-)))

Side note; those shots in the movies are done in a mockup as I'm sure you
know :-)
Some of the mockups are damn good, being the real thing like the B25 cockpit
used in "Tokyo". Other films that used a real cockpit mockup for the inside
cockpit shots were "God Is My Co-Pilot", and "The Flying Leathernecks".
There are many others to be sure, but these two come to mind as in both
films, there are scenes looking over the pilot's shoulder at ther panel
during maneuvering flight where the AH and other instruments as well are
absolutely solid.
But Ted Lawson's "return" over the rice patties in Japan is a classic
example for the "extremely hard to please" critics among us :-))))
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
For personal e-mail, use
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt
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