Oldschool airplane/helicopter movies and tv shows

Airwolf

Senior Member
There's something about those 60's, 70's and 80's movies and tv shows centered on airplanes and helicopters that makes them better than most of the latest productions... I don't know what it is - not the cheesy special effects for sure, and I don't think it's the nostalgia as well...

So, what's your favorite airplane/helicopter movie / tv show?

For me it's:

- Blue Thunder - I was like:

dramatic-cat-o.gif


when I first saw Blue Thunder as a kid


and it was my favorite movie until I discovered:

- Airwolf (no wonder when you look at my nick ;] ) - I first watched this tv show when I was 14... almost everything seemed perfect about the show... great cast, excellent music, interesting story, attention to detail... and it made my next few years, and later I've been creating some Airwolf based game addons (for MS Flight Simulator, Operation Flashpoint), 3D Animations, even music remixes... I still have a certain sympathy for this show so, maybe one day I will build T-Rex/HK 600 based RC Airwolf?...


And same sequence recreated by somebody in OFP (using my addon Airwolf model):


- Top Gun - I'm not a big fan of the short scientologist guy and I never was, but thanks to this movie being a Tomcat fighter pilot is most certainly almost every boy's wet dream, and It wasn't any different in my case... Opening sequence as well as final credits still give me the chills down my spine...


- Final Countdown - I like every movie about time travel as much as aircraft movies and once I discovered Final Countdown I tought it was even better than Top Gun - it's strange for me that the simple idea of today military fighting against armies of the past wasn't really never explored in other movies...


- Last but not the least one - Battle of Britain - great, historically correct aerial sequences and interesting plot... this movie is soooo much better than "Pearl Harbor" for example, and at least as good as "Tora! Tora! Tora!" or "Midway"....

 

bicyclemonkey

Flying Derp
Mentor
Here are two classics I like. There are others but this one's theme song always gets stuck in my head.

Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines


The Blue Max

 
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FlyingMonkey

Bought Another Trailer
Staff member
Admin

#

633 Squadron

A

Above and Beyond

Aces High

Air America - Mel Gibson

Air Force

Air Force One - Harrison Ford

Airport (1970)

Airport (1975)

Airport (1977)

Air Power series: from the 50s, using WW11 films.

Always

Apollo 13 - Tom Hanks

The Aviator - Christopher Reeves (1985)

The Aviator - Leonardo Dicaprio (2004)


B

Bat 21

The Battle of Britain

Behind Enemy Lines

The Birdmen

The Blue Max

Bombers B 52

The Bridges at Toko Ri


C

Captains of the Clouds

Catch-22

Chain Lightning

Command Decision


D

The Dam Busters-1954 Story of the RAF 917 Squadron in WW2

Dark Blue World

The Dawn Patrol

Devil Dogs of the Air

Dive Bomber


E

Executive Decision - Kurt Russell


F

Fate is the Hunter

Fighter Squadron

Final Countdown: a nice mix of aviation and science fiction...

Firefox

The First of the Few

Flight Command

The Flight of the Intruder

Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

Flight of the Phoenix (2004)

Flyboys

Flying Fortress

Flying Leathernecks

Flying Tigers


G

God is my Co Pilot (1945)

The Great Waldo Pepper

A Guy Named Joe

Gypsy Angel


H

Hanover Street

Hell's Angels (1930)

High And The Mighty with John Wayne

The High Road to China

The Hindenburg-1975 One opinion version of the cause of the LZ-129's demise at Lakehurst,NJ.


I

Iron Eagle


L

Ladies Courageous

Lost Squadron


M

The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress

Memphis Belle -1990 Story of the first B-17 to make 25 missions in the bombing campaign of Germany in WW2- A bit hokey at times,but some good B-17 footage

Midway-1976 Lots of carrier based aircraft action


N

No Highway in the Sky


O

One Six Right

Only Angels Have Wings (1939)- Howard Hawks directed this story of early air transport in South America: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmas, Rita Hayworth, lots of others you'll recognize. A VERY underrated film in my opinion. Try it.


P

Pearl Harbor

Piece of Cake (1988)- based on Derek Robinson's book of same name. I believe they used several RC models for this one. Excellent BBC miniseries. They fly two-blade Hurricanes in the book, but Spitfires in series.

Project X (flying monkeys)



R

The Red Baron (Recent German movie, I don't think has been released in the US yet)

The Right Stuff

The Rocketeer


S

Sky captain an the world of tomorrow

Space Cowboys

Spirit of St Louis - Jimmie Stewart

Spitfire (AKA The First of the Few)

The Strategic Air Command


T

Tail Spin

Tail Spin (not a movie but great cartoon with ~30-40's style planes)

Test pilot

Thirty Seconds over Tokyo

Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines

Thunderbolt

Top Gun - Tom Cruise

Tora! Tora! Tora! -1970 Pearl Harbor story

The Tuskegee Airmen

Twelve O'Clock High-1949 Classic aviation flick with great B-17 sequences


W

The War Lover

Wings (1927)- directed by William Wellman, won two Oscars. One of the first and greatest.

Wings of the Navy


And a mention for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade



 

Airwolf

Senior Member
Oh, yeah Red Tails

Oh... I hope I'm wrong, but I think that's gonna be an epic fail...

Why? Two words: George Lucas.

Not only the aerial shots look like a computer game, but Lucas is going to put Jar-Jar as one of the main characters for sure... and there will be a talk about the midichlorian count in blood of African American pilots, American pilots and German pilots too... Meesa don't like! But what meesa likes is Me-262 (first movie ever to feature them?) ;)))
Still doesn't really count as oldschool movie anyway ;]

FM: That's a whole lot of favorite movies ;P But there are some very good titles on this list indeed:

- Flight of Intruder
- Bat 21
- Firefox (I forgot that one!)
- Memphis Belle
- Rocketeer

I like those movies very much.

BTW - maybe some of you can give me a hint about a movie I remember, but I don't remember it's title... It was about american jet pilot (F-16 pilots I think) who was shot down behind enemy lines and some friend (?) of him took another F-16 to bail him out of the prison. There were plenty of dogfight scenes between F-16's and Mirages (or maybe Kfirs, because I think this movie was American-Israeli coproduction)...
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
Some of the scenes on the Red Tail trailer did seem rather shallow. I'd have preferred to see Terrance Howard's character be more militant toward command and command to be more reluctant toward the idea of the Tuskeegee Airmen flying cover.

I can live with the CGI graphics. They should be amazing on the big screen.

Oh, and October Skies is a great movie. It was released in 1999.
 

Epitaph

Ebil Filleh Pega-Bat ^.^
Mentor
I love the iron eagle movies.

Well... the forth one was just too cheesy to sit through, but the first one was really good, especially with the awesome soundtrack, the second one was good, not as much as the first, but was interesting the parallels with the first Iraqi war (like the initials of the operation Dark Star being the same as Desert Storm). The third one was more as a "fun to watch" movie than anything else, definately not to be taken seriously...

But the forth... uffff... makes me feel nauseated just thinking about it!!

Now, another series I like the flight sequences from is JAG, especially when Rabb is flying in his Stearman, what a beautiful plane!! (I know it's not oldschool, sorry, but I think it's worth it)