I was watching "Empire of the Sun" the other night and near the end some
P-51's attack the Japanese base. What struck me was that the P-51's were
flying in just a few feet above the ground and dropping their bombs. Would
this really have been done? How did the planes keep from blowing themselves
up?

This seems pretty routine in contemporary movies. It was ture I think
in Saving Private Ryan, in Windtalkers, and of course in Pearl Harbor,
where a P-40 chases a Zero down a street, about the level of the
second-story windows.

Of course at one time or another, planes flew at every altitude right
down to impact. The artistic failure is to take the exceptional and
make it routine.

Great movie, by the way--Empire of the Sun, I mean. But did you notice
that the entire tail section of the "Zero" turned? Probably it was an
AT-6 with a pointy tail cone pasted on.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (requires authentication)

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com