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What are the best aviation movies of all time?

Scott Spangler, the blogger behind Jetwhine, has written a great post listing some of his favorite aviation movies but we thought it would be a good idea to expand on what he wrote by mentioning some of the best aviation films of all time by genre.

Military Aviation Movies

Military aviation has been a movie topic since the silent film era with Wings, a film about World War I aces, actually being the first Academy Award winner for Best Picture. Moreover, there have been a couple of movies about the Red Baron (1971 and 2008) and even a movie called the Revenge of the Red Baron where the famous ace returns in a toy plane to kill the ace that shot him down.

World War II inspired a wave of classic aviation movies like Flying Tigers, GolfHotelWhiskey.com - The Battle of Britain Tora Tora Tora, The Bridges at Toko Ri, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and Above and Beyond but British aviation history buffs should check out The Battle of Britain which dates from the late 1960s and was filmed in Spain because they were still using some of the same types of aircraft involved in the battle.

After World War II, Strategic Air Command was probably one of the first Cold War aviation movie but it was Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb became a cult classic while Toward the Unknown is about the dawn of supersonic flight.

And of course one has to mention Top Gun but perhaps a far more interesting movie is Steal the Sky which is based on the true story of an Iraqi pilot who defected to Israel in 1966 – taking a MiG-21 fighter jet with him.

Aviation Disaster Films

Hollywood loves disaster movies and Alive would be a classic aviation disaster film about the 1972 crash of the Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes while The Flight of the Phoenix was a fictional 1965 film (that got remade in 2004) about a crash in the Libyan desert. However, No Highway In The Sky is unique because it was a 1951 British disaster film that seemed to foretell the later de Havilland Comet tragedies.

A forgotten commercial aviation movie with a disaster related plot would be the The High and the Mighty which is based upon a 1953 novel by Ernest K. Gann about a real-life trip that he flew as a commercial airline pilot for American Airlines from Honolulu, Hawaii to Portland, Oregon. In the movie, the aircraft suffered engine failure – forcing the crew to choose between a ditching or trying to reach their final destination.

I also know that I have seen some movies (perhaps made for TV though) about the aircraft hijackings that occurred in the 1970 or 1980s but I cannot think of the actual film titles.

Aviation Adventure or Romance

The Great Waldo Pepper about post World War I barnstormers has some of the best aerial sequences you could ever hope for in a film about aviation but High Road to China also includes some great aerial shots as well. And contrary to the film’s name though, it was actually filmed in Yugoslavia. For romance and aviation, Always is a romantic drama directed by Steven Spielberg that’s actually a remake of a 1943 film.

Aviation Comedies

GolfHotelWhiskey.com - Airplae! Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel are absolute classic comedies but a forgotten aviation comedy with a British theme would be Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Dating from 1965, the movie is about a British nobleman who hosts an international “flying machine” race from Dover to Paris in the hopes of stealing a few aviation ideas in order to claim the skies for Britannia while his daughter Patricia, who is betrothed to a pilot in the British army, is tempted away by a flight enthusiast named Orvil who enters the contest.

General Aviation Movies

Scott could not think of any good general aviation movies and neither can I but he did mention The Other Side of the Mountain. However, I don’t actually recall anything related to general aviation in it but I could be mistaken.

With the above aviation movies in mind, are there any that we may have left out? If so, feel free to tell us about them along with what your favorite aviation films are.

Wartime RAF control tower to be turned into a B&B

The Daily Mail has an extensive article about a couple who are converting a wartime RAF control tower at the former North Creake Airfield (near Fakenham in Norfolk) into a bed and breakfast for tourists. The control tower had commanded all landings and takeoffs at the former RAF field before becoming offices, a workers’ mess room, flats and finally a home for the last 20 years but Nigel Morter and his wife Claire Nugent plan to preserve it by taking it “back in time.”

Their plan is to offer a bed and breakfast with three en suite rooms with a tea garden in the grounds and seating in the air raid shelter plus everything added after the war (e.g. shingles, the pitched roof, various sheds etc.) will be removed. The guest rooms will include the old signal office and the controller’s rest room while the bathrooms will be in art deco style. The B&B’s lounge, originally the air station’s meteorological and teleprinter room, will be decorated with 1930s furnishings and the modern kitchen will also be replaced by a 1950s-style version complete with metal and Formica fittings. Finally and for a more authentic experience, breakfast menus will be Ministry of Food-style menus while guests will be able to read daily postings of the RAF station’s operational schedules as they were in 1944-45.

Today, the control tower is in an isolated farmland setting fringed by the Holkham Estate but during the war, it was first used as a decoy site by the air force before eventually being turned into a heavy bomber base known as RAF North Creake. In its heyday, the base had the control tower plus three intersecting runways, technical and administration facilities and living quarters for more than 3,000 servicemen and women. The air field was then closed in 1947.

Interestingly enough, Nigel, who works at the London Metropolitan University, is no stranger to aviation as both his grandfather and father had worked for De Havilland with the later working on Mosquitos. The couple hope to have all of the work completed by next summer and say they are “fired up for the whole thing.”

The 60th anniversary of the Saunders-Roe Princess flying boat

A recent article in The Engineer magazine has brought our attention to the 60th anniversary of the Saunders-Roe Princess Flying Boat. It should first be mentioned that the article needs some clarification as August 22, 1952 was the actual first flight according to Wikipedia while it was in November 1951 when The Engineer magazine profiled the preparations for the flying boat’s launch.

The Saunders-Roe Princess flying boat was originally intended as a luxury transatlantic passenger plane that could comfortably accommodate 100 passengers with sleeping berths and cocktail bars. Unfortunately, it ended up being another impressive example of British aviation innovation that ended in failure due to the fact it simply could not make enough money to justify its existence.

However, The Engineer article from the time seemed to anticipate future problems by noting that the government had forced Saunders-Roe to adapt the flying boats into transporters without going into much detail about why. The real problem turned out to be that flying boats were (by then) already in terminal decline due to the progress civil aviation had made over the previous half century to get runways and airports up and operating on land.

Ultimately, three Saunders-Roe Princess flying boats were built but only one flew – flying a total of 46 test flights or roughly 100 hours of flying time. After no buyers were found, the aircraft were cocooned while several plans, ranging from converting them to fly with nuclear power to turning them into NASA rocket transporters, were drawn up.

When the Saunders-Roe Princess flying boats were finally sold in 1964, it was discovered that they had corroded so badly because the contract for maintenance and inspection had been allowed to lapse that they had to be scrapped in 1967.

A quick search on YouTube revealed this interesting video containing a collection of short newsreels about the Saunders-Roe Princess flying boats:

In addition, the following video is of the 60th anniversary commemoration ceremony (including a seaplane flypast at the 11:30 minute mark or so) which took place on the East Cowes waterfront on the Isle of Wight last August:

Finally, Eric Verdon-Roe also gave this nearly one hour long talk about the life and achievements of his grandfather, Sir Edwin Alliot Verdon Roe, the Roe in Saunders-Roe:

Chasing Spitfires in Burma: A fool’s errand?

We have already noted the quest to find Spitfires in Burma, now known as Myanmar, but now there are reports that there could be as many as 140 or three to four times the number of airworthy ones known to exist and just waiting to be dug up in the country. Moreover, the Spitfires are believed to be rare Mark XIV fighters equipped with the more powerful Griffon type of engine rather than the more famous Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.

The Spitfires had been brought to what is now Myanmar near the end of the war inside crates about 12.2 meters (40 feet) long, 3.4 meters (11 feet) high and 2.7 meters (9 feet) wide but the war ended before they could be unpacked and put into action against the Japanese. It was actually the US army that was in charge of burying the aircraft and British aviation enthusiast David J. Cundall, who has been leading the search for them, has apparently interviewed over 1,000 mostly American war veterans to try and determine their fate.

After searching since 1999 for the locations of the Spitfires, Cundall has since negotiated a two-year contract to recover 60 planes in the first phase with any others to be recovered in a second phase while the Myanmar government will get one plane for display at a museum along with half of the remaining total. DJC, a private company that Cundall heads, will get 30% of the total while his Myanmar partners will get 20%.

Of course, I do have to be skeptical as to how well any crate has held up after being buried for close to 70 years in a tropical country with a monsoon season plus one has to wonder whether any locals have gotten to the sites first when the country was largely isolated from the world to sell anything they found for scrap. And if they only find a few Spitfires in good condition, who gets to keep those – Cundall, his local business partners or the Myanmar government? In such a case, things could get rather messy.

Hence, we want to ask you our readers what you think: Will they find any Spitfires in pristine condition or a pile of rust/rot or nothing at all or just end up squabbling among themselves over what is found? Tell us what you think in the comments section below and we would love to hear from anyone who served or had a close relative or acquaintance who served in Burma.

Last Cold War Vulcan bomber to be grounded

Next year will be the last time to see Britain’s only flying Cold War Vulcan bomber fly as the aircraft is being grounded in part due to soaring restoration costs according to reports in the Daily Mail, This is Lincolnshire and several other papers (the official press release is here). Since its restoration back in 2007, Vulcan XH558 has been seen by more than ten million people in over 60 different locations while three million alone turned out to see her during the 2012 Diamond Jubilee season.

However, the Vulcan XH558 had also been given a technically determined number of flying hours that will be exhausted next year with the Yorkshire Post noting that it already costs an estimated £2m a year to keep the aircraft airborne and that it will need another £200,000 improvement in 2013. Hence, Vulcan to the Sky Trust has decided not to ask its contributors to take the risk of funding another expensive restoration.

Likewise, Engineering director Andrew Edmondso also told in the Harborough Mail that when suppliers close or lose the ability to remanufacture or refurbish key components, it can be prohibitively expensive to re-source them and that:

We know, for example, that the set-up costs to remanufacture a main wheel are more than £70,000. If the approved engineering drawings are no longer available, it can be practically impossible given any amount of money.

Moreover and from the start of the 2014 season, it would be unlikely that the charity could accommodate any engine failures plus the aircraft’s set of engines would be out of life with no more airworthy engines available while refurbishment would be both difficult and costly.

GolfHotelWhiskey.com: Help return the Vulcan XH558 to flight...

No word on when or where Vulcan XH558’s last flight will be plus the Vulcan to the Sky Trust still needs to raise £400,000 within months to fund its winter service. In the mean time, check out the following videos of the Vulcan XH558 in action:

Vulcan and other rare aircraft set to appear at this weekend’s Victory Show

The Victory Show at Foxlands Farm (Cosby) will be held this weekend and on Sunday (weather permitting of course), visitors will be able to see the XH558, the world’s last flying Vulcan and a symbol of British aviation during the Cold War, take to the skies. This will be the first Vulcan appearance at the show in three years and is intended to mark the 60th anniversary of the first Vulcan flight and the 30th anniversary of the Falklands Conflict – the last time the Vulcan bombers saw action.

The Victory Show itself will run all weekend and there will be plenty to see and enjoy for the whole family on the 100 acre site – including over 50 authentic Second World War re-enactment displays along with more that 200 military vehicles plus (for the kids) there will be tank rides, miniature steam train rides, model aircraft and a model boating lake.

However and besides the Vulcan, aviation buffs will enjoy an air show featuring two Spitfires, a Hurricane, three P-51 Mustangs, two P-40 Warhawks, a C-47 Dakota and plenty of other classic aircraft.