The Worst Aviation Movie of All Time

On 2007-03-28, Dan Luke wrote:

"Jay Honeck" wrote:

We often talk about the BEST aviation movie here, but how 'bout the worst?

I'd put "Pearl Harbor" up against anything for sheer Hollywood stupidity.
Sure, there have been plenty of crappy aviation B-movies made, but P H was
crappiness on a grand scale.

Pearl Harbor is one thing. But I think Jay should show one particular
aviation movie in his home cinema setup. It is the movie that is so bad
it is good. It is in fact, the movie that they parodied in "Airplane".

It's called "Zero Hour". The hero is even called Ted Striker. It's dead
serious - but seen through the lens of "Airplane" it's something else.
The closing sequence of the aircraft landing has to be the classic
sequence of this movie. Also, be sure to watch the instrument panel when
Ted Striker enters the flight deck for the first time ...

--
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On Mar 28, 8:33 am, Dylan Smith wrote:

Pearl Harbor is one thing. But I think Jay should show one particular
aviation movie in his home cinema setup. It is the movie that is so bad
it is good. It is in fact, the movie that they parodied in "Airplane".

It's called "Zero Hour". The hero is even called Ted Striker. It's dead
serious - but seen through the lens of "Airplane" it's something else.
The closing sequence of the aircraft landing has to be the classic
sequence of this movie. Also, be sure to watch the instrument panel when
Ted Striker enters the flight deck for the first time ...


Awww you beat me to it! Airplane! is a scene for scene parody of
Zero Hour! Airplane! could not have been so good if Zero Hour! had
not been soooo bad. It's truly hilariously bad.

In a different vein, if you're looking for the worst, as in, "This
movie is so bad I can't watch it without gagging", I think I have a
candidate for you. It's a TV movie from 1996 called "Panic in the
Skies!". I just happened to catch a bit of this movie the other day
whilst channel surfing. It was obviously written by people that had
absolutely no clue about airplanes or flying. The situations in the
major plot twists are so ludicrous that even a beginning student pilot
would see right through them.

Initially, the entire crew of a 747 is killed when the plane is
struck by lightning (yeah, right). As the hapless passengers are
flying across the country on autopilot, the autopilot "picks up
signals" from small airports along the way and keeps trying to land
the 747 at GA airports. The main task of the passengers is to figure
out a way of avoiding overflying these airports, so that the autopilot
will quit acquiring the "signals" and trying to land them on
unsuitable runways. Oh yeah, and the government is considering
shooting down the 747, so it doesn't crash on helpless ground
dwellers.

It goes on and on like this for a couple of hours. Don't even get
me started on the VSI with the spinning needle that unwinds in a dive
like an altimeter.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122202/plotsummary

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

On Mar 28, 8:33 pm, "John Galban" wrote:
In a different vein, if you're looking for the worst, as in, "This
movie is so bad I can't watch it without gagging", I think I have a
candidate for you. It's a TV movie from 1996 called "Panic in the
Skies!". [...]
Initially, the entire crew of a 747 is killed when the plane is
struck by lightning (yeah, right). As the hapless passengers are
flying across the country on autopilot, the autopilot "picks up
signals" from small airports along the way and keeps trying to land
the 747 at GA airports. [...]

Ouch, that _does_ sound bad. Okay, how about that recent one where
the airplane's trim (and throttle?) were stuck in an "up" position...
so they used a hose from an aerial tanker to fill the nose wheel well
with water (which froze into ice)... and when they got close to the
ground it melted and fell out when they dropped the nose gear. What
was that title? Awful !!!

Kev

"Kev" wrote in message
oups.com...

Ouch, that _does_ sound bad. Okay, how about that recent one where
the airplane's trim (and throttle?) were stuck in an "up" position...
so they used a hose from an aerial tanker to fill the nose wheel well
with water (which froze into ice)... and when they got close to the
ground it melted and fell out when they dropped the nose gear. What
was that title? Awful !!!


There was a real piece of crap made for TV about twenty years ago. As I
recall an HST evades a meteor shower by climbing, flies too high and
inadvertently enters orbit. I think Lee Majors was the pilot.

John:

I tried to send off-list email about the F16 factory, but verizon considers
my ISP to be non-existent. So for the rest of you, sorry...

Sorry, John, but I predate you to the late 70s. I spent 4 months
there managing a re-training program for people being "surplused"
into software development for GenDyn. They figured I was the best
person since I did lots of aerospace software...

The most fun (not) was my hotel room at the departure end of
the runway. At the time, the plant co-existed with the AF base
and B-52s were based there. 5:30am - 40-50 of those suckers took off.
I never had to set my alarm clock. On the down side, every
evening at 5:30 pm they'd come back, right over the pool where we
were all hanging out with our favorite libation....

Blanche wrote:
John:

I tried to send off-list email about the F16 factory, but verizon considers
my ISP to be non-existent. So for the rest of you, sorry...

Sorry, John, but I predate you to the late 70s. I spent 4 months
there managing a re-training program for people being "surplused"
into software development for GenDyn. They figured I was the best
person since I did lots of aerospace software...

The most fun (not) was my hotel room at the departure end of
the runway. At the time, the plant co-existed with the AF base
and B-52s were based there. 5:30am - 40-50 of those suckers took off.
I never had to set my alarm clock. On the down side, every
evening at 5:30 pm they'd come back, right over the pool where we
were all hanging out with our favorite libation....

Would that be the White House motel? I remember the B52s taking off and
rumbling things mightily.

John Galban writes:

It goes on and on like this for a couple of hours. Don't even get
me started on the VSI with the spinning needle that unwinds in a dive
like an altimeter.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122202/plotsummary

There's an extended review he

http://www.airodyssey.net/articles/movie-panic.html

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

John Galban writes:

It goes on and on like this for a couple of hours. Don't even get
me started on the VSI with the spinning needle that unwinds in a dive
like an altimeter.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122202/plotsummary

There's an extended review he

http://www.airodyssey.net/articles/movie-panic.html


Oh how useful. So i don't have to think.


bertie

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

I'd put "Pearl Harbor" up against anything for sheer Hollywood stupidity.
Sure, there have been plenty of crappy aviation B-movies made, but P H was
crappiness on a grand scale.


I recall much talk about the efforts at historical accuracy during
production of "Pearl Harbor".

It was absolute garbage. Navy nurses giving Army pilots physicals,
monitoring voice transmissions in Hawaii from the Doolittle raid,
misspelling Mitchel Field, and many more.

Even errors in simple physics. Remember when our heroes were trying to
rescue sailors from the overturned battleship after the attack? They're
working well above the water level in the calm harbor, they had just cut
through
a small section of the remarkably thin hull. A few sailors reached hands
through the hole, they were grasped by the rescuers as water bubbled up
through the hole, drowning the sailors.


Why is the water rising inside the ship?

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

I'd put "Pearl Harbor" up against anything for sheer Hollywood stupidity.
Sure, there have been plenty of crappy aviation B-movies made, but P H was
crappiness on a grand scale.


I recall much talk about the efforts at historical accuracy during
production of "Pearl Harbor".

It was absolute garbage. Navy nurses giving Army pilots physicals,
monitoring voice transmissions in Hawaii from the Doolittle raid,
misspelling Mitchel Field, and many more.

Even errors in simple physics. Remember when our heroes were trying to
rescue sailors from the overturned battleship after the attack? They're
working well above the water level in the calm harbor, they had just cut
through
a small section of the remarkably thin hull. A few sailors reached hands
through the hole, they were grasped by the rescuers as water bubbled up
through the hole, drowning the sailors.


Why is the water rising inside the ship?

That kind of stuff is what convinces me the movie business is composed of
people who flunked 8th grade science...and history...and, well, practically
everything.

What I hated most about "Pearl Harbor" was the ghastly, anachronistic dialog:
"I'm not anxious to die, just anxious to matter." What is that, a Peace Corps
volunteer?

Not for one second could I believe that these were people of the times.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM