[WWI] Flyboys

[Andy Bannister]

I'm still reeling from the appalling rubbish that was "Pearl Harbor" so I
think I'll avoid this one. And I have yet to see a CG airplane that looked
anywhere near convincing.
As far as I'm aware tracer bullets were in use in WWI - at least they were
in the Biggles stories anyway. ;-)

Andy 
 
CEO, Editor in Chief, Choreographer, Teaboy
www.warpedplastic.co.uk 


-----Original Message-----
From: wwi-bounces at wwi-models.org [mailto:wwi-bounces at wwi-models.org] On
Behalf Of Nigel Rayner
Sent: 24 September 2006 20:13
To: wwi at wwi-models.org
Subject: Re: [WWI] Flyboys


Sadly it's not released in the UK so we can't get to see it yet. I'll be
there when it is and I'm sure it's fun but I'm expecting to be disappointed.
The critics seem to be pretty universal in saying that it's OK when the
action starts but the plot and acting are pretty lame. Now I know we
shouldn't trust the critics but there is a consistent thread in most of them
saying what a pity they screwed up what could have been a really compelling
story. That's certainly how it appears to me in all the discussion and
trailers I have seen. I think they made a mistake in assuming that non-WWI
fanatics are dumb idiots that just need a simple good guys/bad guys story
and that the real story is too "complicated" for them.

Still, it has had some good impact - Eduard have released a 1/72 Nieuport
off the back of it! This has inspired me to build a trio of *real* Flyboys
planes - a Nie 11, 17 and SPAD VII all done in proper Lafayette markings. So
it can't be all bad!

Finally, a question. What do you all think of the smoke trails left by the
bullets in the movie? Would this have happened in WWI? I checked out some
WWII gun camera films and sometimes the tracers leave smoke trails, but not
always. I wasn't aware that tracer was used in WWI so I had assumed that
"normal" bullets would not leave trails (another reason for "getting in
close", because it would be hard to see where your bullets were going from
200-300 yards away). But I realized this is something that I really don't
know anything about. Any of our resident experts, or even grouches or
heretics, got any thoughts?

Cheers,

Nigel