Anybody else watching this show? It’s on History Channel, but it’s better than that would lead one to believe. I enjoy the summaries of the various dog fights and like that the show even shows action from WWI. The only thing that bothers me is the way they “Jiggle the camera” when planes pass by. It’s an attempt at realism that is out of place. The animation is great, but not so much that we expect the camera to physically react to the planes.
Also, one of my favorite episodes should not have been made, IMHO. The battle of Leyte Gulf was awesome, but it was nearly all naval action. Completely out of place in an aviation show.
I’ve only seen part of one episode, which involved an F-105 Thunderchief taking on three MiG-17s to save an A-1D Skyraider, but it looked rather cool.
As for the Wobblecam, as it is sometimes called, it’s a trendy thing to do for computer generated SFX, made (in)famous by Firefly and later BattleStar Galactica, the idea being to give you the impression that the cameraman is floating in space trying to keep up with the action, so there’s lots of quick pans, snap-zooms, and “jiggle the camera” moments. If done well, it looks very good.
When does this show come on? I want to see more of it! Have they covered the Battle of Midway or the air battle over Oahu during Pearl Harbor? (Not much of an air battle, only 7 planes got up in the air, 5 obsolete P-35s and a pair of P-40 Tomahawks piloted by Lieutenants Welch and Taylor). Midway was notable for being the first time that American pilots found a way to effectively engage the more maneuverable Japanese pilots in a dogfight rather than relying on hit-and-dive tactics (ie: The “Thatch Weave”)
It’s on Fridays at 9 or 10. They’ve had episodes about WWI, Mustangs vs BF-109s, A couple of shows about the pacific war, MIG-alley and Vietnam. Tonight is about Mig-17s vs the Mirage in the middle east.
OK it’s 10 on Fridays and Tuesdays. Tonight was very nice. Dog fights from the Middle East wars. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to point out that the Israelis win. That brings up a sore point for me. The shows don’t explicitly make a “good guy, bad guy” statement, but it’s clearly the motif. I’d like to see some of the dog fights from the other side.
I think they focus on the guys who won the dogfights. More often than not, that seems to tend towards the Western powers during the last 50 years. To be fair, one of the Israeli pilots did make a point of saying that the Arab pilot he was trying to shoot down was “probably just some guy trying to get home to his kids”
It would be interesting to see something about a Vietnamese pilot fighing US aviators (I understand that there were a number of North Vietnamese pilots who became aces shooting down F-4 Phantoms in their MiG-21s), or some German or Japanese pilots, or even Russian pilots (who did go up against American pilots from time to time, particularly in the Korean War)
That said, the show doesn’t seem to be so much about dogfighting as aerial combat, since the next episode is about the Swordfish torpedo bombers fighting the German battleship Bismark. Most advanced and powerful warship built by man, and it can’t defend itself against biplanes. :smack:
Yes. In the Bismarck’s defence, though, it was just too advanced for its own good: its fire-prediction systems were designed to track much faster aircraft than the slow old Stringbag - and the hit that disabled her was one of these crazy “never tell me the odds” shots that just happened to jam the ship’s steering.
Yep, the torpedo struck the Bismark’s Achilles Heel, almost literally. Once she was stuck in that wide trun, the Royal Navy just lined up like it was a duck shooting gallery and took shots at her as she cruised past.
I caught the F4 vs Mig episode. I’ve read a few accounts of the inability of US pilots to engage N. Vietnamese fighters effectively when they closed to cannon range, this show illustrated that nicely.
IIRC, the F4 was from the long American tradition of making very fast powerful jets, and it’s primary advantage was in putting the nose up and jamming the throttle to the stops, then diving back down on an enemy (or, inversely, diving down and them nosing up to climb back up under them). Basically the same problem that American pilots had during WWII, that the enemy had smaller more maneuverable planes, and the Americans had bigger, faster planes.
I really liked the MIG/Phantom show. The phantom was definately the muscle car of the fighter world. The best part was at the end of the account of one phantom taking out two MIG-21’s. After all the action and descriptions the narrator says that the whole encounter took one minute and twenty nine seconds.
Raguleader, Yeah the show’s all about the winner. But there occassions when the other side won. I’d like to hear about some of those, at least it would show that things were not a cake walk for the winners. That could be difficult though for the japanese pilots. Most of them were killed off.
Yeah, I’m reminded of a saying about fighter pilots: There are no average fighter pilots. There are aces, and then there are targets.
There might be a few Japanese pilots left, but I don’t know if any of them are aces, and in any case, there just aren’t a great many people left from that war.
There were a few until recently; when Microsoft developed MS CFS2, the War in the Pacific version, they had the advice of some guy called Saburo Sakai. He lived until September 2000.