@@timothysmith2658 I read the book back when Red Storm Rising and Team Yankee were published. On Yankee Station, Thud Ridge and Warbirds made up that year's reading list. Still waiting for a screen treatment of those books.
@@pontiacGXPfan Not saying he didn't but there were people who committed (you know) that they claimed died from COVID so.... Also I didn't know Brad Johnson had died till just now, and this movie and "Always" are 2 of my favorite movies.
VA-35, USS Coral Sea, 69-70. We lost 3 aircraft in training & 5 crew. One ran into a mountain in Virginia, no survivors. Two others had a mid air (clipped wings or something), one survivor. Lost one in combat on Tonkin Gulf, no survivors. On the brown shirts & working. I was a plane captain for a while then realized the dangers of the flight deck (air wing had a few killed there , several seriously injured) so I transferred to the engine fuel system shop. I took a picture of one of our plane captains while he was sitting on the edge of the flight deck. He was exhausted & the pic shows that. It was a rather rough line period. The most grueling thing they did was something called spot & re-spot. Plane would comeback from a mission, get parked (the spot part) then might have to move the bird to another location for some reason or other (the re-spot part). This could happen several times before the next mission. The bird would have to be tied down with tie down chains, un-tied, moved to another location then re-tied. The chains were carried in a canvas sack from location to location and they were heavy. The ship was taking on ordinance (500 pounders & CBUs) about every 2 to 3 days. We had one that had to fly south to DaNang because of a bird strike. The powerplant guys & the airframe guys shared the same shop (if you could call the small work place a shop) so I got the story form one of them. Seems that some large white bird struck the canopy (not the windscreen) on the BN side & blew a large hole in it, bird going inside. First thought, AAA. BN has no aircraft controls, gets concerned about pilot because he is just an observer if the pilot gets knocked out. BN: You OK?? Pilot you? OK here, what happened? Blood under red light looks kind of like motor oil & the bird splattered the stuff all over the inside of the canopy & windscreen as it made a couple of circuits around the inside the A-6. They joked about it afterwards but not at the time. Airframe guys had a hell of a mess to clean up. All the instruments in the plane were analog, the computer was a drum type under the BN seat and prone to failure. I don't know much about the electronics but there were an array of EW counter measures on the center console. The chaff dispenser was just aft of the exhaust of the #1 engine. Chaff packet (looked like a large SOS pad) would get shot out into the jet exhaust turning the chaff packet to form a fine cloud as soon as it hit the exhaust. The plane had no ailerons, it had something called spoilerons. Both wings had spoilers on the upper side of the wings. There was a RAT on the upper part of the left wing that could provide emergency electric service in an emergency. There was no hydraulic backup, if the engines quit turning the bird continues flying in whatever configuration it was in, basically has the aerodynamics of a falling brick. On the scene where the squadron skipper tries to eject the canopy, Don't do dat. The canopy slides aft on a set of rails so if the airframe is damaged the canopy can get jammed leaving the leading edge of the canopy right over the crews head and no way out. Eject through the canopy only. A-6 was built by Grumman and the nickname for the factory was "The Grumman Iron Works" because their aircraft were quite tough. Air wing 15 came back from that deployment minus 19 airmen, mostly aircrew. Some MIA, some KIA- BNR (body not recovered).We also lost an E-2 Hawkeye and the other carrier on line with us (the Constellation) lost a C-2 greyhound with several passengers aboard. I never re-upped. I think that this was filmed on the USS Ranger. The Ranger was another carrier that we shared line duty with. Also we were tied up at Alameda on the same pier. Probably info overload but here it is.
Very cool info here! You would make an excellent film advisor if they remake FOTI….or one like it. I was stationed at NAS Alameda in ‘70-‘73 and remember the Ranger, Hancock, Oriskany, and Enterprise tied up. Back in those days, it was easy getting a ship tour just asking the JOOD.
I was an A-6 Intruder plane captain in VA-42 ( eastcoast RAG) at NAS Oceana from 1973 to Aug 15,1975. Went to Fallon & Yuma several times for pilots bombing practice & on the Indy, Lex & FDR for carrier quals. Was cat shot off in a COD, flown off in a huey & a HC-46.
@@6Sally5 Short story on the Ranger. We were tied up just across the pier from them. We were watching a movie in the fwd hangar deck when the fire alarm was sounded. Apparently the Ranger only had a skeleton crew aboard so our duty fire team had to go over & handle the situation. Movie was stopped, shortly later we secured from fire situation then restarted movie. This happened 3 more times so the movie was cancelled. That was late summer 69, flash forward to early spring 1970 on the North Tonkin Gulf. Coral sea shucked out some turbine blades on one of the main propulsion engines. They locked the shaft in place & commenced to try & remove the bolts that coupled the main shaft from the turbine gearbox. Meanwhile the capt tried to get the ship up to launch speed but couldn't due to the drag on the one screw. Like to shook the old gal apart. Ranger gets recalled for line duty to replace us (Ranger was on it's way back stateside). On the day that the engineering crew got the last bolt out of the coupling the Ranger pulled up along side us. When they heard the word they started pulling that large white horse up & down the flight deck & playing the William Tell Overture on the PA system. Flight deck crew was jumping up & down cheering. They had just served nearly a year of line duty, we had several months to go. Once that one screw was allowed to free wheel we could make about 29 kts on 3 engines.
The Ranger took two intruders to Iraq in '91, Atkron 145 Swordsmen and 155 Silver Foxes.....155 lost a crew(Tom "TC" Costen and Charlie "Tuna" Turner), shot down during a low-level strike
Hey Mover, fellow AA pilot here. I had the honor of riding the B/N seat during flight tests of the A6 re-wing program. Since Coonts consulted on the movie, the flying scenes are extremely realistic as verified by my experience with the airplane and many conversations with A6 aviators. An A6 simulator was used so no fake instruments or indications like in Top Gun. Uncanny reproduction of radar imagery from the era (they may have used real radar footage). The pilot’s screen shown in the movie was the real instrument called VDI and was a combined navigation/terrain avoidance and targeting system. Extremely advanced for it’s time. Kicking the computer as well as the B/N and pilot callouts are spot on real. The movie may not be perfect but it’s a hell of a lot better than any other air combat movie I can think of and a great tribute to the Vietnam era aviators.
My only gripe about the VDI; Yes they had a VDI in '72 but the screen output was different (lower quality with 'the cow pats') and as many times I plane and bench tested a VDI (89-92) I never saw any textural output that looked like it did on the big screen, but maybe the SIM was different? Now kicking the PCU, yes that is a real thing! We used to kick the A/D converters to get them working all the time so that tracks.
The visual graphics of the Radar and VDI were created by a guy named Michael Okuda, who was the visual graphics artist for Star Trek: The Next Generation. All of the background graphics and things like the Computer control panels on the show were created by him and his team. His work is so well known in the business that something like the Intruder VDI graphic is called an "Okudagram".
@@cleekmaker00 Ah HA! That explains it. Movie continuity and making the viewers understand what they are seeing. I scrubbed through my A-6 NATOPS and didn't see any reference and as many VDI's that I messed with I never remembered seeing any textural anything on the screen. Almost fooled me and I worked on the damned thing! LOL!!
In the book, the engine flame out was caused by Jake accidentally pulling the throttles back into cutoff when the MIG causes him to panic. It's part of the theme of PTSD affecting his ability to do his job.
which is actually kind of difficult to do, slamming the throttles back to idle, to shut them down, a large left hand detent must be executed to put the throttle handles to the "Cutoff" position. And yes, he did admit to it, but another A-6 person has stepped up and said, even in combat that is a precarious thing to do. the problem with the sequencing, what we dont know is was that a RADAR equipped MIG15/17, we cannot see the intake to see the small bulge that would be the RADAR itself. Cole's idea of destroying the ground station guiding him negates that the MiG did not have RADAR, thus destroying the ground station the MIG became blind. The flame out occurred after the station was destroyed and also after the missile was defeated with flares and throttle changes. A hard break right into the clouds then led to the flameout, what Grafton did specifically, even the book does not accurately portray it.
I really enjoyed this film as a kid and due to that tried to learn all I could about the Intruder. One of the little snippets I picked up was a story about a A-6 pilot after the Gulf War in 91 he got home and was trading stories with his dad who had been an A-6 pilot in Vietnam. It turned out the son had gone to war in the same aircraft (not just the same type the same actual airframe) that his father had.
@@alexandertheissl808 True, bombs of all types are weapons of terror. We were actively engaged in the secret bombing of Laos. Recently watched something on U-tube about Australian bomb disposal teams working in Laos. One of the locals made the statement "We had no place to hide, no caves, nothing. All we could do was stand there & take it". Some of those little cluster bombs are killing people to this day, mostly children because the little bomblets (locals call them bombies) look like toys.
I think Stephen Coonts was also a consultant on the movie, since he wrote the book and flew A-6s. It speaks to the authenticity of the movie. The thing with Willem Dafoe kicking the console after the malfunction.....that was an actual thing.
From what I can tell Mover doesn't realise how primitive computers were in those days. They were more mechanical than they were electronic, and a modern handheld is probably far more powerful and reliably than those things were.
he was both a former A-6 Driver and a consultant to the book. He was also very vocal about Hollywood nonsense being put into his film on things other than small discrepancies for wow factor. I neglected in my commentary the mechanical rotary nature of the A-6's computer, but yes, that is accurate to "Kick" them if the system mechanically got hung and BACE could not restart the system properly.
In the book, the flameout of the engines when he was evading the missile from the Mig was because Cool Hand actually accidently cut the engines totally instead of just going to idle. Cole noticed but didnt say anything. On the ship they figured he did it purposely and his legend of being "Cool" increased.
In the movie coincidentally, Grafton actually admitted to the throttle screw-up but did not clarify the screw-up in context. "Bullshit, That was a major throttle screw up and you know it!" ^ the exact line by Grafton in the movie.
Its funny how he did that, since the throttle quadrant is two stage (I'm calling it two stage only to explain the process of shutting down the engines). Two stage meaning when you pull the throttles all the way to the rear you are in idle, no matter if you slowly pull it to the rear or slam them to the rear. To shut the aircraft down, you must move both throttles to the left and then back, or as we called it "Around the Horn".
I did 4 tours on the Ranger ('69-72) as a pencil-necked computer geek working in the Intelligence Center (IOIC) up on the O-3 level. There was, in fact, a TV in every ready room. The flight briefs were done from IOIC with a 2-way audio feed to handle questions. When secured from flight ops we switched the feed to the ship's TV/movie channel. We also used IOIC as a secure poker site because only one of the ship's MAA's had sufficient security clearance to enter the space and he LOVED his poker games! One of the briefing maps hinged off the bulkhead to provide a 7-seat, green felt table!
Nam pilots are a different breed my father lost three aircraft in Vietnam still alive today. He flew cobras in Nam, the only man i was ever scared of and respected growing up and till this day. A true warrior.
Went to college with a fella whose pop was a Recon Marine back in the 'Nam. Down here, we do a bit of deer hunting. He relayed to me that one time he asked his pop how many kills. His pop was silent for a while and then answered: more men than deer. And my friend told me that his pop had killed a lot of deer. Different times. Different men.
One of my favorite movies. My buddy who was a Navy A-6 guy was in charge of special effects on this movie, he made the models, coordinated the air to air shots, etc. He is going to be on my podcast in the near future talking about making this movie.
I was stationed on NAS Whidbey Island when the movie was released. NAS WI was the home of the A-6 and A-6E squadrons back then. I was at the premier of the film and you could see A-6 drivers bobbing and weaving during the film. LOTS of shout outs too. Was a great night.
This was an excellent movie. I also enjoyed Brad Johnson in the much-maligned "Always". I was struck when Brad Johnson died earlier this year, RIP, and thanks for the wonderful portrayals that continue to leave a grand legacy of aircraft and the men that flew them.
oh this was the reason he initially said he would not do FoTI, it was very petty and minimal things to ruin. this is one of the very FEW movies that as Wombat very clearly stated: Un-Ruinable.
Great review! Fun fact. The reason the Navy was so helpful was because they were the publisher of the book the movie was based on, so they already had rights to the movie. The author talked about it on the FPP.
As an eighth grader I stole this book from my Dad and read it. Dad was just shy of retiring from the Navy as a twenty year aviator. He went through flight training with Stephen Coonts, but flew A-7s in the fleet.
Willem Dafoe is perfect in this movie and definitely its most redeeming quality for me...🤣 I actually can't say I like this movie as much now as I did when I was younger but your review actually has given me some added appreciation for it.
Defoe and Brad Johnson had great chemistry in this movie. Always get choked up when he calls in the air strike on himself and Grafton yells don't do it! I wish they made movies with that kind of emotion again.
Filmed on uss independence cv 62. I was a aircraft handler in V-1. Filmed during work ups 89. VA 96 was squadron. Being on that ship, working on that deck was incredible!
This was filmed on board the USS Independence CV-62. All the action scenes were filmed during a two week sea period of the coast of San Diego. Other scenes were filmed in port onboard! Most of the Bigger names in the film were very busy and never really took the time to mingle with the crew! However Danny Glover took time most every day to sit with some of the enlisted crew on the mess decks. Outstanding Gentleman was he! I was lucky to have served on-board the Indy. Those few weeks were great! I even got to return to the Indy when she took over for the Midway in Japan!
I was on CV-62 when they filmed it. I and my criminal investigator partner, John R. Gregory took Danny Glover on a personal tour of the ship's brig. GLOVER was very cool guy.🎉
I was also on the USS INDEPENDENCE while filming this movie 🎬 Yeah Danny Glover was Kool Dude 😎 I'm sitting on the Fire Truck 🚒 with the silver tin Fire Suit 😅 when the Pilot ✈️ that died landed on flight I had to pick him up on the stretcher lol memories 😊
I remember seeing this in theatres with my gf and her cousin. Dude was stationed on the Lincoln CVN 72, and he was raving at us about this movie, _"We gotta go see this movie, man, I LOVE that airplane! I have seen em come back all shot up, but that jet could take the punishment and bring guys back alive!"_ So we went and saw it, and Ricky (Gf's cuz) said it was the most accurate Naval aviation ever made.
Worked on the A6-E. Aviation Ordnance Technician. VA-128 was a training squadron for the pilots and b/n's, and VA-95 aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, World Cruise '89-90. No other plane like it. If you worked on the Intruder, you were lucky. Best bomber ever. And it wasn't just the pilots that were fearless. Awesome to be a part of it.
Absolutely love this movie! The Intruder was my favourite aircraft of the era. Sneak and peeks, hop and pops, intel, electronic warfare... the people that flew this baby were legends.
For me "Flight Of The Intruder" was honestly neck and neck with "Top Gun" and "By The Dawn's Early Light" when I was a kid as my favorite aviation movies.
Man, that was great! Nice to see you guys so impressed with some of the accuracy in it, and it was great to see a young Willem Dafoe in it! I remember liking this film as a kid but can barely remember anything about it now, other than the Prowler model kit i used to have.
I remember playing the game for this movie on the amiga a lot. It needed a tripple keyboard layout to have all its functions covered and came with a thumbthick manual and also a small book describing the history of the vietnam war. As far i remember it was the first fighterbomber simulation that could be played multiplayer via linkcable.
WOW! I didn't realize how "star studded" this movie was. Tom Sizemore (Saving Pvt Ryan), a young Ving Rhames (with hair!!), Dann Florek (Law & Order SVU)!! Impressive!
It’s a great flick! It was available for streaming, not too long ago. My wife’s uncle was an A-6 pilot. He’s got some great stories. Super cool airplane.
A buddy of mine was stationed at Cubi Point when this movie came out. The real "Box Man" was base commander at the time and Stephen Coonts came out there for a premiere party.
Great movie! I know it wasn't a flying scene, but I can't believe you didn't leave in the scenes in the bar in "Po-city". At least the scene where there's the exchange with the fighter pilot ("Don't ask a man if he's a fighter pilot. If he is, he'll let you know. If he's not, don't embarrass him.") Now why would a fighter pilot leave that out? :)
He probably left that scene out because one of the merchant seamen called Chief the N word, and TH-cam would have probably canceled Mover. That’s my theory, but yeah that’s an awesome scene especially the part with the tail hook ride 😅
Finally! I always like the guy puking in the Jeepney in Po city "You have room in here for a pizza and a six pack?" Sure thing. "RALPH!". I really can't think of a bad movie from John Milius.
@@InDebt8 I love how the only thing they can call out is the models and the occasional special effects. I have always loved this movie for it's authenticity.
Avionics Fire Control Tech Troubleshooter/Final checker certified on the A-6E Swip during the early 90s and in Desert Shield/Storm. Our squadron lost a couple planes with a POW aircrew during that time. The kicking of the ACU prior to their downtown Hanoi run was quite accurate. It was junk. As Tech's, it wasn't uncommon to receive the same faulty equipment stuck in the cycle with repeat identical faults, IMUs and A/D Conv as well. Occasionally after replacing the same serialized unit with a good unit the faulty one would take a rolling trip across the flight deck to ensure it wouldn't rotate into the cycle again. No questions asked by Maintenance or Div Officer. The movie certainly portrayed the true life of the A-6 and its workhorse attitude. It was a living breathing personality to many that worked on her and the crew. A lot of love/hate but she wanted to be treated bad to excel at her purpose. Granted it's not F14 or F18 attractive but she could take a huge beating and still fly. We had ones return with huge holes in her wings, AAA hit in the starboard refueling panel, holes throughout and land the crew safely. Everything must eventually die but that plane holds a real special place in her crew and maintenance personnel hearts. Wouldn't trade a second of my life with the plane for anything. Thanks for your vid guys!
Cool stuff! thanks for sharing! One of the stories I remember hearing about the A-6 was after Desert Storm a A-6 pilot got home and was swapping stories with his dad who flew A-6s in Vietnam. Turned out that the son had flown the exact same aircraft in combat as his dad!(wish I could remember the names) Does that sound plausible or something that someone made up?
@@princeoftonga You know, I do recall hearing that same story years and years back. It's actually very plausible and I am nearly certain that it did occur. I wish I had their names but I will ask a couple of shipmates to try and find more info for you. I have a number of photos I took when an A-6 of ours made an extremely hard landing after taking numerous rounds and triple A fire. A small crew of us were sent in to remove sensitive equipment and anything else we could possibly pull. The crew were not seriously injured physically and I believe only scratched. We were able to disengage the canopy hydraulics and close it. This allowed for us to insert our fingers thru the intense number of holes that were caused by AAA shrapnel that went into the cockpit missing the aircrew. We just shook our heads in awe. Amazing. A real testament to the tough quality Grumman produced and shear luck.
@@iamrrspike7132 Yeah Grumman “iron works” were well known for producing sturdy heavily engineered aircraft. 50s and 60s aircraft engineers really built those old birds to last. One of the other interesting stories from Desert Storm I picked up along the way was about the Royal Air Force Buccaneers (originally naval strike aircraft like the A-6 then being flown from land bases). Because the coalition Tornados couldn’t carry laser designator pods the old Buccaneers flew into Iraqi airspace armed with literally just a laser pod to illuminate targets for other coalition aircraft!
I love Wombat's expression as he's watching .. like a 14 year old boy who's girlfriend just invited him over because her mom and dad are out for the night!! 🤣😏
I read the book back when it came out and fell in LOVE with the A6. This was before I knew what I looked like! The book is 100 time better than the movie. I think the movie is good, but, the ending in the movie had ALOT of dumb things going on as I heard they were running out of money and had to cut alot out of what they wanted to do in the original screen play. I would suggest to anyone who likes the move, go read the book! It's so good and will really give you an insight into navy aviation during the VM War. This was the 1st book that Stephan Coots wrote and he went all to write several more that were just as great! "Final Flight" is about 14's. Cant say enough. Thank you for reviewing this movie. Wish there were more like this.
@@larryhutchens7593 I agree Larry, but the way they did the ending to this movie was just....dumb! Still, love the movie, but it as the whole series of Coots books that made me fall in love with Navy aviation. I would say the 2nd book, "The IntruderS" is almost as good, but alot funnier.
Mover! Great episode, this is one of my favorite movies! I was also on the TR like you, for the ‘17-‘18 cruise with VMFA-312. Very fond memories on that boat.
Hey guys, thank you for allowing me to sit in with you to watch the film. I'm only half-way through, but felt compelled to write a comment now. I read this book sometime in the mid-90's because the author is an alumni of my university; WVU West Virginia 'Almost Heaven' University! His book is well written, I recall it was a fast, enjoyable read. It's odd to refer to war as "enjoyable" but I think you know what I mean. And as for the Intruder...come on, it is the sexiest flying machine ever made! Okay, there are certainly other contenders for the most all-around kick-ass airplane. But the Intruder has to be on the short list. The P-51 Mustang and the Corsair are really good too. The F-18 Hornet...I'll admit, I was not happy when they first came on scene. Like everyone else of my vintage, the Tomcat was THE flying machine. But when I stood on the shores of Lake Erie, and a Blue Angel Hornet 'BUZZED' my head...... WOW!!
IIRC, what Cole was kicking was the rotary drum that housed the DIANE software's memory (some sort of core rope memory system) which apparently could get physically stuck. I believe it may have been mentioned in the Fighter Pilot Podcast Intruder episode, but not sure.
Drum memory and core memory are two different things; core memory doesn't have moving parts, but drum memory sure does -- a magnetic cylinder, like a hard disk in tubular form, with words of memory on tracks read by a fixed array of heads.
I loved this breakdown. My college RA's dad was a marine corps Intruder pilot. Col. out of Orange County. It cracked me up from the old hydraulics, he was all upper body strength and little legs.
As long as you're going old skewl, gentlemen, I'd love to see you ruin "Bat-21" Gene Hackman plays Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton shot down in Nam and something, SERE, something golf course? The Birddog scenes with Danny Glover are fantastically entertaining. Just a suggestion from an old Jarhead Grunt. You might like ruining it.
Danny did not fly a Birdog in BAT-21, he flew a Cessna O-2A Super Skymaster twin. The O-1 is a single engine, high wing aircraft with non retractable tail dragger landing gear, while the O-2 has retractable tricycle landing gear, also known as the Model-337, to Cessna.
I saw this flick in the cinema when it first came out, and I just watched it at home (again) last week. I’ve always enjoyed it. As much as I’ve liked Top Gun, Flight of The Intruder always felt more authentic and organic, and less Hollywood. Maybe I need to read the book. I enjoyed the commentary from Mr. Mover and Mr. Wombat, and I’m looking forward to part 2.
When I was in, our Flight Doc used to ride with us and he loved it. He was an amateur photographer for his hobby and used to like to take his camera along. I was Guard and my civi job was flying a Cessna Caravan at the time for a DZ .We flew to it and he got some great ppictures.
I remember watching this at the theater in Ridgecrest, CA. They had a special viewing for our squadron at China Lake. I know that there were portions of the movie where RC models were used and those flying sequences were filmed out there.
I watched this again a month or so ago, probably the 10th time I’ve watched it. Great movie, wish they had continued it. Hard to believe this movie bombed at the box office, no pun intended…
One of my favorite books & movies, I fell in love with the Intruder after reading the books(sorry Tomcat fans) and always wanted to fly one. I don't know how accurate a lot of the movie is, but I do remember talking to Vietnam Era B/N that said they were told to kick the computer to restart the rotors....the felt that a fair amount of the movie was true to life. While the events might never have happened, the details to support things were spot-on.
I've been waiting for this one. Definitely one of the greats, and yes, the Intruder is STILL a sexy plane. You're 100% right: those pilots and NFOs were a different breed.
This was a staple of my youth and in 1996 I got to fly the A-6 WST (sim) at NAS Whidbey Island. My wife was a turd shirt in VAQ-129 (Prowlers). Nice job Wombat....great commentary!)
I remember playing the Flight of the Intruder flight sim in 1990 after reading the book! It was developed by the same company that did Falcon, Spectrum Holobyte. Instead of being the usual arcade movie tie-in, it tried to be a realistic simulator, replicating the actual navigation and bombing procedures. Unfortunately, in spite of the primitive graphics, it was still too demanding for my Commodore Amiga, but I still had fun. It's too bad they haven't made a real Vietnam-era flight sim since then. (I mean, DCS might have the planes, but does it simulate the GCI and SAM systems of the time?)
From what I've seen so far, it does a decent job of it....it's more based in the mid to late 80's or WW 2 though; not so much Viet Nam. However, what it does depict it appears to do it VERY well.
This was fun to watch! I'm not military, but appreciate our service men and women and the things they do to protect our freedoms. My sincere thanks to you both. FOTI is one of my all time favorite movies and I've always enjoyed it more than Top Gun, maybe because my dad served in Vietnam. I read my dad's copy of the book first as a pre-teen and then saw the film and loved it. Gotta admit - my affection is in no small part due to the A-6 which I just think is the coolest, most badass looking airplane. It gave me great pleasure to see Wombat's enjoyment of this film and also hear someone else comment on how cool the A-6 is. Most think it's ugly but I think it's a beautiful aircraft.
Mover - im ashamed, you said earlier you would not do Flight of The Intruder because you did not have anyone as a source for the A-6 to verify information, nor did you feel it was worthy of creating. I offered you to contact someone who was an A-6 driver in Vietnam on the A and B models, but you never got back to me. ----------------------------- so i have info from an actual A-6 driver, who was the father of one of my childhood best friends. Right after Coolhand says nag-nag-nag 3:30 - this is the RADAR ALT indicating low level altitude based on the Altitude Bug, the A model lacked the info from the weapons system to indicate safe dropping altitudes for weapons selected. This was not included until the B Model. 505 was an A-6A. 520 flying IronHand was a B model. The RADAR Scope was an authentic scope, however the icons for the search radar are wrong for the era, they filmed the cockpit scenes from an A-6E which is all they had. the A-6A had much more simplistic icons as symbology, not animated, which the A-6E improved upon. the biggest notice was the enemy RADAR, it was not animated like this. it was just a simple icon with some info to determine the type of RADAR. 'Ground Lock' this is the actual screen the BN saw. "Jam em up - were jamming" Morg was punching random keys into the weapons stores management which was not the correct panel for the ECM Controls, that was a panel below and to the left of the SMS panel. 5:00 and 5:07 "YOU'RE TOO HIGH" - actually, he was right on the money according to the Ball. 9:22 - Navy Supported FoTI - Absolutely, they allowed multiple filming sequences with live launches and all with the repainted aircraft and crews on deck. 9:50 - look really close at this Intruder, its actually a TRAM A-6E, but the Ball Turret has been removed at the request of Paramount, and Navy Electronics Techs put a piece of metal covering over the TRAM Turret position, you can see the seam of the plate. Also note worthy was the ECM antennas that are correct for the TRAM, but not the A Model. 11:55 - those 4 blade hamilton props are the best sounding props the US DoD Ever had! 19:45 - Wern't those the fuel indicators, - no, they are the Engines N1, N2, FF and EGT Slider Tapes, just like the B-1's same layout. 21:50 - Boxman's shoot down was a tribute to one of the actual USS Independence's A-6 Crews lost to a SAM shootdown. 23:58 - this was actually quite common for the computers to fail. they were pre-solid state and relied on a significant majority of analog and vacuum tube based systems. they failed quite often, and yes, according to my source, failed exactly like that. Fun fact- the A-6 was the first combat aircraft to feature a advanced failure detection system, known as BACE ( Basic Automated Checkout Equipment ) and was the predecessor to BITS. 23:45 - "I think I got it" this was something BACE could do - yet another first ever for a combat aircraft, it could restart the Computers and potentially recover the failure of the data by checksum checking the data loaded into the computers before a mission. If it recovered, it would restart the mission programming and pickup where the failure left off and do a quick Navigation check, once the aircraft figured out where it was, it resumed the mission parameters. 24:48 - "LAUNCH" again, this is the RADAR Altimeter indicator. it was 100% based on the Altimeter Bug, it was NOT used for alerting to incoming missiles or "Safe Drop" levels in the A-6A. so this would not be flashing red unless they were below the Altitude Bug setting, not by a missile launch which the "MISSILE" was the alerting indicator along with the RWR and Threat Indicator. Fun Fact - These are accurate sounds the A-6 portrayed for various types of missile launches, the sound that was NOT accurate was the MiG-15/17 lock-on. that would be a 4 tone alternating rapid pulse. And most of the MiG-15/17's of the era did not even have a RADAR to begin with, hence why Cole said to lockup the Ground RADAR that was guiding him. If that MiG had its own RADAR which certain variants of MiG-15/17 had RADAR the ground station would have been redundant since the MiG would have acquired them on its own RADAR and no longer needed vectoring. we cannot determine that here as we cannot see the intake clearly enough to see if the small RADAR Bulge is present. 25:30 - All that jinking around must have thrown off the ACU - yup, the jinking from the SAM detonation caused a failure that blew out the ACU Circuit breakers, hence the come back to bomb again, Cole states - Check the ACU Breakers. Coolhand reaches behind the center console and presses in 5 circuit breakers. This is the actual ACU Breaker location, 5 of them. one for each respective weapons pylon.
Stephen Coonts, who wrote the book the movie was based on, was an actual A6 pilot in Vietnam, apparently with 1600 hours on A6s, and 305 carrier landings. The movie used A6-Es, rather than Vietnam era As and Bs.
"Those guys in Vietnam were just a different breed" Yeah, I realized that when some oldhead aviator was talking about trying to find a 4th award silver star sticker for his car. Just...nice.
Thank you for doing this movie. Part 1 1. I was stationed onboard the USS Independence (CV-62) when this was filmed. 2. The author Stephen Coonts also wrote "Under Siege" staring Steven Seigal and Tommy Lee Jones. 3. They did a fair job of the mock-up of the Philippines. (Was filmed in Mexico) 4. I was a reader, so I used that library often.
Stephen Coonts was at the EAA Oshkosh Fly In book signing when this book was released. I purchased the book and had him autograph it. One of my favorite all time authors. He was an instructor pilot at NAS Kingsville in VT22 when I was a maintainer on the TA4J. Great review guys. You can't ruin this one :).
One of my high school science teachers was married to an A-6 B/N, and getting to see them up close (along with this movie) made me fall in love with the Intruder. It wasn't the prettiest plane, but it was highly effective at its job. I've been waiting for Mover's take on this movie for a long time. So glad to finally see it.
Soon after the movie was made, I talked to the pilot/owner of the Skyraider that flew wingman in the movie. They shipped the AC from Texas to Hawaii to film the final scene. If you look carefully, you can see a window in the fuselage: it was originally an AD-4 night fighter with a radar operator in the fuselage.
In Coonts' book The Cannibal Queen he tells some stories of some of the classic aircraft used in the film. An A4 was borrowed from a museum, and someone noticed it was a later A4 with the humpback. They owner agreed to remove the housing to play an older model
I have this movie on disc and saw it when it first came out many moons ago and watch it a few times a year. One of the best Viet Nam movies ever made. My oldest brother is a Nam vet, Army, Spec 4 out of Phu Bai, radio intercept and relay. Nam vets still to this day do not get the respect they deserve.
The cover of the paperback of this book WORKED. Totally caught my eye in the grocery store back in the day. So glad. Awesome book; vivid descriptions of flying. Good story also.
at last, this is so good. The book was good, but I remember seeing the film at the cinema and I was blown away, the A6 was amazing, Grumman made some amazing planes
LtCol Paul Brown Was my CO at EL Toro in 1984. He was an Intruder navigator during Viet Nam. Ha was shot down and was a POW in the Hanoi Hillton...you guys just gave me some insight into what he did albeit he was USMC...he was a good man. Thanks, guys.
Glad y'all finally did a 'ruins movies' about this. Wombat... @16:55 "you literally worked together as a crew, you needed that guy" The same is true for EA-18Gs. Especially now with the two less EW nerds that the EA-6B had. On my second go-around at Whidbey, I was a sim operator for the Growlers, and yes... the EWO and Pilot (SAMC; Single Anchor Master Class) still definitely have to work together. The CIs (contract instructors) in the sim still teach crew-coord to the level they did back with the old A-6s and EA-6s. And I know they practiced it in the air. @17:14 "see I think they have people that knew this mission" They literally filmed most of this up at NAS Whidbey (in-sim for cockpit views/cascade and olympic low level routes) and talked to the old guys who flew A-6As and Bs.. those that flew the SkyPig in it's pre-TRAM (tgt recognition attack multisensor) days. The film crews also talked to aircrew from my old squadron, VMAQ-4. When I first got there, we still flew the EA-6As and fired the AGM-45 Shrike, I think it even gets mentioned in this movie. All that being said, great review. Keep up the good work. I'll be waiting for part 2.
The "I want to smell it" line, I worked for the Navy at NAS Meridian. Meridian is 1 of 2 NAS that are the Navy's UPT, also most other Nations that have Naval Aviation send their pilots thru the training. I was there when the UK started sending their pilots thru a few years before HMS Queen Elizabeth was commissioned to get current on Flight Deck Ops and CATOBAR quailed to then go on to a Hornet Squadron. On a CQ det, I literally had a Royal Navy Commander say something extremely similar, it was his 1st time back on a boat since the Royal Navy decommissioned their boats, he did something similar, he looked off into the distance and took it all in.
Cool to see "Wombat" is such a fan of Grumman aircraft I grew up a few blocks from Grumman on Long Island NY. I loved seeing all the planes taking off. The A6 was awesome to see heading out to wherever it would be put to work. Plenty of E2 Hawkeyes were built here as well and were constantly overhead.
So glad to see the two of you doing this movie. I loved the book when I read it, and this came out right at the top of the run-up to Iraq I. Hope all's well with you, and thanks for all you do.
I've always thought it was the most under-rated and underappreciated military aviation theme movie out there. Thanks for bringing it to light. The book was pretty good, too.
It's nice when the movie actually has this thing called a plot and a script.
Came from a novel, and I believe the author was an intruder pilotm
The book was so much better than the movie
@@timothysmith2658 I read the book back when Red Storm Rising and Team Yankee were published. On Yankee Station, Thud Ridge and Warbirds made up that year's reading list. Still waiting for a screen treatment of those books.
Yeah, I read it when it was first published, back in the 80’s. Read Red Storm Rising while on a North Atlantic Cruise on the TR in ‘88.
@@timothysmith2658 RSR was Clancy's best work. I really wish HBO or someone would option that for a 10 episode miniseries.
Most underrated movie with regard to air combat. Love the intruders. Rest In Peace Brad Johnson.
Google posted that he died from complications caused by coronavirus
@@pontiacGXPfan Not saying he didn't but there were people who committed (you know) that they claimed died from COVID so.... Also I didn't know Brad Johnson had died till just now, and this movie and "Always" are 2 of my favorite movies.
VA-35, USS Coral Sea, 69-70. We lost 3 aircraft in training & 5 crew. One ran into a mountain in Virginia, no survivors. Two others had a mid air (clipped wings or something), one survivor. Lost one in combat on Tonkin Gulf, no survivors. On the brown shirts & working. I was a plane captain for a while then realized the dangers of the flight deck (air wing had a few killed there , several seriously injured) so I transferred to the engine fuel system shop. I took a picture of one of our plane captains while he was sitting on the edge of the flight deck. He was exhausted & the pic shows that. It was a rather rough line period. The most grueling thing they did was something called spot & re-spot. Plane would comeback from a mission, get parked (the spot part) then might have to move the bird to another location for some reason or other (the re-spot part). This could happen several times before the next mission. The bird would have to be tied down with tie down chains, un-tied, moved to another location then re-tied. The chains were carried in a canvas sack from location to location and they were heavy. The ship was taking on ordinance (500 pounders & CBUs) about every 2 to 3 days. We had one that had to fly south to DaNang because of a bird strike. The powerplant guys & the airframe guys shared the same shop (if you could call the small work place a shop) so I got the story form one of them. Seems that some large white bird struck the canopy (not the windscreen) on the BN side & blew a large hole in it, bird going inside. First thought, AAA. BN has no aircraft controls, gets concerned about pilot because he is just an observer if the pilot gets knocked out. BN: You OK?? Pilot you? OK here, what happened? Blood under red light looks kind of like motor oil & the bird splattered the stuff all over the inside of the canopy & windscreen as it made a couple of circuits around the inside the A-6. They joked about it afterwards but not at the time. Airframe guys had a hell of a mess to clean up. All the instruments in the plane were analog, the computer was a drum type under the BN seat and prone to failure. I don't know much about the electronics but there were an array of EW counter measures on the center console. The chaff dispenser was just aft of the exhaust of the #1 engine. Chaff packet (looked like a large SOS pad) would get shot out into the jet exhaust turning the chaff packet to form a fine cloud as soon as it hit the exhaust. The plane had no ailerons, it had something called spoilerons. Both wings had spoilers on the upper side of the wings. There was a RAT on the upper part of the left wing that could provide emergency electric service in an emergency. There was no hydraulic backup, if the engines quit turning the bird continues flying in whatever configuration it was in, basically has the aerodynamics of a falling brick. On the scene where the squadron skipper tries to eject the canopy, Don't do dat. The canopy slides aft on a set of rails so if the airframe is damaged the canopy can get jammed leaving the leading edge of the canopy right over the crews head and no way out. Eject through the canopy only. A-6 was built by Grumman and the nickname for the factory was "The Grumman Iron Works" because their aircraft were quite tough. Air wing 15 came back from that deployment minus 19 airmen, mostly aircrew. Some MIA, some KIA- BNR (body not recovered).We also lost an E-2 Hawkeye and the other carrier on line with us (the Constellation) lost a C-2 greyhound with several passengers aboard. I never re-upped. I think that this was filmed on the USS Ranger. The Ranger was another carrier that we shared line duty with. Also we were tied up at Alameda on the same pier. Probably info overload but here it is.
Very cool info here! You would make an excellent film advisor if they remake FOTI….or one like it. I was stationed at NAS Alameda in ‘70-‘73 and remember the Ranger, Hancock, Oriskany, and Enterprise tied up. Back in those days, it was easy getting a ship tour just asking the JOOD.
I was an A-6 Intruder plane captain in VA-42 ( eastcoast RAG) at NAS Oceana from 1973 to Aug 15,1975. Went to Fallon & Yuma several times for pilots bombing practice & on the Indy, Lex & FDR for carrier quals. Was cat shot off in a COD, flown off in a huey & a HC-46.
@@6Sally5 Short story on the Ranger. We were tied up just across the pier from them. We were watching a movie in the fwd hangar deck when the fire alarm was sounded. Apparently the Ranger only had a skeleton crew aboard so our duty fire team had to go over & handle the situation. Movie was stopped, shortly later we secured from fire situation then restarted movie. This happened 3 more times so the movie was cancelled. That was late summer 69, flash forward to early spring 1970 on the North Tonkin Gulf. Coral sea shucked out some turbine blades on one of the main propulsion engines. They locked the shaft in place & commenced to try & remove the bolts that coupled the main shaft from the turbine gearbox. Meanwhile the capt tried to get the ship up to launch speed but couldn't due to the drag on the one screw. Like to shook the old gal apart. Ranger gets recalled for line duty to replace us (Ranger was on it's way back stateside). On the day that the engineering crew got the last bolt out of the coupling the Ranger pulled up along side us. When they heard the word they started pulling that large white horse up & down the flight deck & playing the William Tell Overture on the PA system. Flight deck crew was jumping up & down cheering. They had just served nearly a year of line duty, we had several months to go. Once that one screw was allowed to free wheel we could make about 29 kts on 3 engines.
The Ranger took two intruders to Iraq in '91, Atkron 145 Swordsmen and 155 Silver Foxes.....155 lost a crew(Tom "TC" Costen and Charlie "Tuna" Turner), shot down during a low-level strike
Thanks for your service.
Hey Mover, fellow AA pilot here. I had the honor of riding the B/N seat during flight tests of the A6 re-wing program. Since Coonts consulted on the movie, the flying scenes are extremely realistic as verified by my experience with the airplane and many conversations with A6 aviators. An A6 simulator was used so no fake instruments or indications like in Top Gun. Uncanny reproduction of radar imagery from the era (they may have used real radar footage). The pilot’s screen shown in the movie was the real instrument called VDI and was a combined navigation/terrain avoidance and targeting system. Extremely advanced for it’s time. Kicking the computer as well as the B/N and pilot callouts are spot on real.
The movie may not be perfect but it’s a hell of a lot better than any other air combat movie I can think of and a great tribute to the Vietnam era aviators.
My only gripe about the VDI; Yes they had a VDI in '72 but the screen output was different (lower quality with 'the cow pats') and as many times I plane and bench tested a VDI (89-92) I never saw any textural output that looked like it did on the big screen, but maybe the SIM was different? Now kicking the PCU, yes that is a real thing! We used to kick the A/D converters to get them working all the time so that tracks.
The visual graphics of the Radar and VDI were created by a guy named Michael Okuda, who was the visual graphics artist for Star Trek: The Next Generation. All of the background graphics and things like the Computer control panels on the show were created by him and his team. His work is so well known in the business that something like the Intruder VDI graphic is called an "Okudagram".
@@cleekmaker00 Ah HA! That explains it. Movie continuity and making the viewers understand what they are seeing. I scrubbed through my A-6 NATOPS and didn't see any reference and as many VDI's that I messed with I never remembered seeing any textural anything on the screen. Almost fooled me and I worked on the damned thing! LOL!!
"The average literacy rate was higher than it is now"
Spot on!
I mean if you think about it, more people are reading now than ever before. You know, because of the Internet and Internet-based communication.
@@towmotornoises People are 'communicating' with each other using acronyms and emojis.
Unequivocally false too!
@@jreut09 The majority of high school grads are reading at a 5th grade level. That's pretty bad
In America. You guys somehow manage to politicise education.
In the book, the engine flame out was caused by Jake accidentally pulling the throttles back into cutoff when the MIG causes him to panic. It's part of the theme of PTSD affecting his ability to do his job.
correct
he says that in the movie too. He just didn't put in the cut on here
Nah, he was reducing his heat signature by killing the engines... 😉
@@alphakky I see someone else is a fan too :)
which is actually kind of difficult to do, slamming the throttles back to idle, to shut them down, a large left hand detent must be executed to put the throttle handles to the "Cutoff" position.
And yes, he did admit to it, but another A-6 person has stepped up and said, even in combat that is a precarious thing to do.
the problem with the sequencing, what we dont know is was that a RADAR equipped MIG15/17, we cannot see the intake to see the small bulge that would be the RADAR itself.
Cole's idea of destroying the ground station guiding him negates that the MiG did not have RADAR, thus destroying the ground station the MIG became blind.
The flame out occurred after the station was destroyed and also after the missile was defeated with flares and throttle changes.
A hard break right into the clouds then led to the flameout, what Grafton did specifically, even the book does not accurately portray it.
I really enjoyed this film as a kid and due to that tried to learn all I could about the Intruder. One of the little snippets I picked up was a story about a A-6 pilot after the Gulf War in 91 he got home and was trading stories with his dad who had been an A-6 pilot in Vietnam. It turned out the son had gone to war in the same aircraft (not just the same type the same actual airframe) that his father had.
That’s AWESOME !!!!!
That is cool saw. Watched a B-52 documentary and they showed a young pilot flying the same airframe his grandfather flew in the 60's.
👍🏻 My father was one of the voices in the intro. F-105 Thud, 421 TFS Korat Thailand.
Cool!
Thud Ridge is an Excellent book.
@@georgesykes394 Pak Six by Gene I. Basel is another must read about the F-105.
@@FN_FAL_4_ever As in Route Pack 6?
@@georgesykes394 yes
Yes! Finally! Fighter pilots make movies. Bomber pilots make HISTORY!
Prove it ASSSSHOOOOOLE
FACT
I think a fighter pilot is more like a knight in the blue sky, protecting the civilians. A bomber pilot is like a butcher who destroys everything...
@@alexandertheissl808 True, bombs of all types are weapons of terror. We were actively engaged in the secret bombing of Laos. Recently watched something on U-tube about Australian bomb disposal teams working in Laos. One of the locals made the statement "We had no place to hide, no caves, nothing. All we could do was stand there & take it". Some of those little cluster bombs are killing people to this day, mostly children because the little bomblets (locals call them bombies) look like toys.
And ground support puts them all in the air.
I think Stephen Coonts was also a consultant on the movie, since he wrote the book and flew A-6s. It speaks to the authenticity of the movie.
The thing with Willem Dafoe kicking the console after the malfunction.....that was an actual thing.
Rotary drum computers in the A-6A.
@@chrismaverick9828 it was in the book.
From what I can tell Mover doesn't realise how primitive computers were in those days. They were more mechanical than they were electronic, and a modern handheld is probably far more powerful and reliably than those things were.
he was both a former A-6 Driver and a consultant to the book.
He was also very vocal about Hollywood nonsense being put into his film on things other than small discrepancies for wow factor.
I neglected in my commentary the mechanical rotary nature of the A-6's computer, but yes, that is accurate to "Kick" them if the system mechanically got hung and BACE could not restart the system properly.
@@white-dragon4424 more powerful by a magnitude
In the book, the flameout of the engines when he was evading the missile from the Mig was because Cool Hand actually accidently cut the engines totally instead of just going to idle. Cole noticed but didnt say anything. On the ship they figured he did it purposely and his legend of being "Cool" increased.
In the movie coincidentally, Grafton actually admitted to the throttle screw-up but did not clarify the screw-up in context.
"Bullshit, That was a major throttle screw up and you know it!"
^ the exact line by Grafton in the movie.
@@CapStar362 "if you were a candy-ass I'd ask for a new pilot, but you'll do..."
Its funny how he did that, since the throttle quadrant is two stage (I'm calling it two stage only to explain the process of shutting down the engines). Two stage meaning when you pull the throttles all the way to the rear you are in idle, no matter if you slowly pull it to the rear or slam them to the rear. To shut the aircraft down, you must move both throttles to the left and then back, or as we called it "Around the Horn".
@@leelynch230 yup, detent based shutdown.
It's my understanding that with the older generation jets, a pilot could flame out an engine just by throttling back too fast.
I did 4 tours on the Ranger ('69-72) as a pencil-necked computer geek working in the Intelligence Center (IOIC) up on the O-3 level. There was, in fact, a TV in every ready room. The flight briefs were done from IOIC with a 2-way audio feed to handle questions. When secured from flight ops we switched the feed to the ship's TV/movie channel. We also used IOIC as a secure poker site because only one of the ship's MAA's had sufficient security clearance to enter the space and he LOVED his poker games! One of the briefing maps hinged off the bulkhead to provide a 7-seat, green felt table!
Nam pilots are a different breed my father lost three aircraft in Vietnam still alive today. He flew cobras in Nam, the only man i was ever scared of and respected growing up and till this day. A true warrior.
Thank you for your father's service
Went to college with a fella whose pop was a Recon Marine back in the 'Nam. Down here, we do a bit of deer hunting. He relayed to me that one time he asked his pop how many kills. His pop was silent for a while and then answered: more men than deer. And my friend told me that his pop had killed a lot of deer. Different times. Different men.
One of my favorite movies. My buddy who was a Navy A-6 guy was in charge of special effects on this movie, he made the models, coordinated the air to air shots, etc. He is going to be on my podcast in the near future talking about making this movie.
@@tommyanderson-filmmaker3976 what is it called btw?
@@Nghilifa The Real Tommy Unleashed Show on the IQ Podcast Network
@@tommyanderson-filmmaker3976 That sounds cool,
I was stationed on NAS Whidbey Island when the movie was released. NAS WI was the home of the A-6 and A-6E squadrons back then. I was at the premier of the film and you could see A-6 drivers bobbing and weaving during the film. LOTS of shout outs too. Was a great night.
This was an excellent movie. I also enjoyed Brad Johnson in the much-maligned "Always". I was struck when Brad Johnson died earlier this year, RIP, and thanks for the wonderful portrayals that continue to leave a grand legacy of aircraft and the men that flew them.
Brad Johnson was a very good actor, horrible news. He was great in the Vietnam motorcycle movie "Nam Angels" and Rough Riders, I recommend both.
Man been waiting for the mover ruins movies of this for a long time
But I had a feeling there wouldn’t be much to ruin and I was right
oh this was the reason he initially said he would not do FoTI, it was very petty and minimal things to ruin. this is one of the very FEW movies that as Wombat very clearly stated:
Un-Ruinable.
Great review! Fun fact. The reason the Navy was so helpful was because they were the publisher of the book the movie was based on, so they already had rights to the movie. The author talked about it on the FPP.
The author, Stephen Coonts did two combat deployments on the USS Enterprise to Vietnam. My dad served onboard for 1 of them.
As an eighth grader I stole this book from my Dad and read it. Dad was just shy of retiring from the Navy as a twenty year aviator. He went through flight training with Stephen Coonts, but flew A-7s in the fleet.
That is so cool that he went through Flight Training with Coonts.
I remember reading the book long ago too. It was different, the movie took out a lot of things.
Willem Dafoe is perfect in this movie and definitely its most redeeming quality for me...🤣 I actually can't say I like this movie as much now as I did when I was younger but your review actually has given me some added appreciation for it.
Ya see, Iron Hand is his thing
Defoe and Brad Johnson had great chemistry in this movie. Always get choked up when he calls in the air strike on himself and Grafton yells don't do it! I wish they made movies with that kind of emotion again.
@@johntomik4632
And he's cool as a jewel.
Filmed on uss independence cv 62. I was a aircraft handler in V-1. Filmed during work ups 89. VA 96 was squadron. Being on that ship, working on that deck was incredible!
Saw this in the movies, I probably 12 or 13 years old at the time. It was such an underrated movie back in the day. Can't wait for part 2.
This was filmed on board the USS Independence CV-62. All the action scenes were filmed during a two week sea period of the coast of San Diego. Other scenes were filmed in port onboard! Most of the Bigger names in the film were very busy and never really took the time to mingle with the crew! However Danny Glover took time most every day to sit with some of the enlisted crew on the mess decks. Outstanding Gentleman was he! I was lucky to have served on-board the Indy. Those few weeks were great! I even got to return to the Indy when she took over for the Midway in Japan!
I was on CV-62 when they filmed it. I and my criminal investigator partner, John R. Gregory took Danny Glover on a personal tour of the ship's brig. GLOVER was very cool guy.🎉
I was also on the USS INDEPENDENCE while filming this movie 🎬 Yeah Danny Glover was Kool Dude 😎 I'm sitting on the Fire Truck 🚒 with the silver tin Fire Suit 😅 when the Pilot ✈️ that died landed on flight I had to pick him up on the stretcher lol memories 😊
You have no idea how happy it makes me to see you finally do this movie! One of my all time favourites. Thank you!!
I remember seeing this in theatres with my gf and her cousin. Dude was stationed on the Lincoln CVN 72, and he was raving at us about this movie, _"We gotta go see this movie, man, I LOVE that airplane! I have seen em come back all shot up, but that jet could take the punishment and bring guys back alive!"_
So we went and saw it, and Ricky (Gf's cuz) said it was the most accurate Naval aviation ever made.
Such a great movie, nothing to ruin, just watch and enjoy. So glad you left the “down town” singing in.
Worked on the A6-E. Aviation Ordnance Technician. VA-128 was a training squadron for the pilots and b/n's, and VA-95 aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, World Cruise '89-90. No other plane like it. If you worked on the Intruder, you were lucky. Best bomber ever. And it wasn't just the pilots that were fearless. Awesome to be a part of it.
Absolutely love this movie! The Intruder was my favourite aircraft of the era. Sneak and peeks, hop and pops, intel, electronic warfare... the people that flew this baby were legends.
For me "Flight Of The Intruder" was honestly neck and neck with "Top Gun" and "By The Dawn's Early Light" when I was a kid as my favorite aviation movies.
"Grafton, I thought I grounded you....
Sir, I am grounded..."
Technically correct
Man, that was great! Nice to see you guys so impressed with some of the accuracy in it, and it was great to see a young Willem Dafoe in it! I remember liking this film as a kid but can barely remember anything about it now, other than the Prowler model kit i used to have.
I remember playing the game for this movie on the amiga a lot. It needed a tripple keyboard layout to have all its functions covered and came with a thumbthick manual and also a small book describing the history of the vietnam war. As far i remember it was the first fighterbomber simulation that could be played multiplayer via linkcable.
WOW! I didn't realize how "star studded" this movie was. Tom Sizemore (Saving Pvt Ryan), a young Ving Rhames (with hair!!), Dann Florek (Law & Order SVU)!! Impressive!
...And Capt Soble!! Reincarnated as an Navy Lt?!? 😂
You forgot Danny Glover.
ironically those guys are still alive(to varying degrees)
That Sam City bomb run is hard to top as an air combat movie sequence
It’s a great flick! It was available for streaming, not too long ago. My wife’s uncle was an A-6 pilot. He’s got some great stories. Super cool airplane.
The author, Stephen Coonts did two combat deployments on the USS Enterprise to Vietnam. My dad served onboard for 1 of them.
Been waiting for this mover ruins movies for literally years. Fighter pilots make movies. Bomber pilots make history
A buddy of mine was stationed at Cubi Point when this movie came out. The real "Box Man" was base commander at the time and Stephen Coonts came out there for a premiere party.
Great movie! I know it wasn't a flying scene, but I can't believe you didn't leave in the scenes in the bar in "Po-city". At least the scene where there's the exchange with the fighter pilot ("Don't ask a man if he's a fighter pilot. If he is, he'll let you know. If he's not, don't embarrass him.") Now why would a fighter pilot leave that out? :)
Because fighter pukes make movies. Bomber pilots make HISTORY!
@@EvolvedTactical Indeed!
I thought the same thing that scene is classic
He probably left that scene out because one of the merchant seamen called Chief the N word, and TH-cam would have probably canceled Mover. That’s my theory, but yeah that’s an awesome scene especially the part with the tail hook ride 😅
Finally! I always like the guy puking in the Jeepney in Po city "You have room in here for a pizza and a six pack?" Sure thing. "RALPH!". I really can't think of a bad movie from John Milius.
I just finished reading Treason Flight, a great read. Finally, Flight of the Intruder.
Not really “ruining” this movie, more like “enjoying the hell out of it”….
Agreed! You could tell Mover and especially Wombat were like "Yep, that's authentic."
@@InDebt8 I love how the only thing they can call out is the models and the occasional special effects. I have always loved this movie for it's authenticity.
Avionics Fire Control Tech Troubleshooter/Final checker certified on the A-6E Swip during the early 90s and in Desert Shield/Storm. Our squadron lost a couple planes with a POW aircrew during that time. The kicking of the ACU prior to their downtown Hanoi run was quite accurate. It was junk. As Tech's, it wasn't uncommon to receive the same faulty equipment stuck in the cycle with repeat identical faults, IMUs and A/D Conv as well. Occasionally after replacing the same serialized unit with a good unit the faulty one would take a rolling trip across the flight deck to ensure it wouldn't rotate into the cycle again. No questions asked by Maintenance or Div Officer. The movie certainly portrayed the true life of the A-6 and its workhorse attitude. It was a living breathing personality to many that worked on her and the crew. A lot of love/hate but she wanted to be treated bad to excel at her purpose. Granted it's not F14 or F18 attractive but she could take a huge beating and still fly. We had ones return with huge holes in her wings, AAA hit in the starboard refueling panel, holes throughout and land the crew safely. Everything must eventually die but that plane holds a real special place in her crew and maintenance personnel hearts. Wouldn't trade a second of my life with the plane for anything. Thanks for your vid guys!
Cool stuff! thanks for sharing! One of the stories I remember hearing about the A-6 was after Desert Storm a A-6 pilot got home and was swapping stories with his dad who flew A-6s in Vietnam. Turned out that the son had flown the exact same aircraft in combat as his dad!(wish I could remember the names) Does that sound plausible or something that someone made up?
@@princeoftonga You know, I do recall hearing that same story years and years back. It's actually very plausible and I am nearly certain that it did occur. I wish I had their names but I will ask a couple of shipmates to try and find more info for you.
I have a number of photos I took when an A-6 of ours made an extremely hard landing after taking numerous rounds and triple A fire. A small crew of us were sent in to remove sensitive equipment and anything else we could possibly pull. The crew were not seriously injured physically and I believe only scratched. We were able to disengage the canopy hydraulics and close it. This allowed for us to insert our fingers thru the intense number of holes that were caused by AAA shrapnel that went into the cockpit missing the aircrew. We just shook our heads in awe. Amazing. A real testament to the tough quality Grumman produced and shear luck.
@@iamrrspike7132 Yeah Grumman “iron works” were well known for producing sturdy heavily engineered aircraft. 50s and 60s aircraft engineers really built those old birds to last. One of the other interesting stories from Desert Storm I picked up along the way was about the Royal Air Force Buccaneers (originally naval strike aircraft like the A-6 then being flown from land bases). Because the coalition Tornados couldn’t carry laser designator pods the old Buccaneers flew into Iraqi airspace armed with literally just a laser pod to illuminate targets for other coalition aircraft!
Atkron 35 Black Panthers?
Finally, thank you so much for this movie. An all time favorite and underrated af.
I love Wombat's expression as he's watching .. like a 14 year old boy who's girlfriend just invited him over because her mom and dad are out for the night!! 🤣😏
Haha great comment.
FINALLY! You did it! I was anticipating to see your review on this movie ever since I've been watching your channel!! Many thanks.
I read the book back when it came out and fell in LOVE with the A6. This was before I knew what I looked like! The book is 100 time better than the movie. I think the movie is good, but, the ending in the movie had ALOT of dumb things going on as I heard they were running out of money and had to cut alot out of what they wanted to do in the original screen play. I would suggest to anyone who likes the move, go read the book! It's so good and will really give you an insight into navy aviation during the VM War. This was the 1st book that Stephan Coots wrote and he went all to write several more that were just as great! "Final Flight" is about 14's. Cant say enough. Thank you for reviewing this movie. Wish there were more like this.
True, most of the time a movie short changes a book. The best way to do it is with a mini series but they didn't do that back then.
@@larryhutchens7593 I agree Larry, but the way they did the ending to this movie was just....dumb! Still, love the movie, but it as the whole series of Coots books that made me fall in love with Navy aviation. I would say the 2nd book, "The IntruderS" is almost as good, but alot funnier.
Mover! Great episode, this is one of my favorite movies! I was also on the TR like you, for the ‘17-‘18 cruise with VMFA-312. Very fond memories on that boat.
312 Checkerboards "Fights On"
Ayyy my dad worked on this movie as a model maker! Pretty sure he was the one that painted the miniature planes.
Hey guys, thank you for allowing me to sit in with you to watch the film. I'm only half-way through, but felt compelled
to write a comment now. I read this book sometime in the mid-90's because the author is an alumni of my university;
WVU West Virginia 'Almost Heaven' University!
His book is well written, I recall it was a fast, enjoyable read.
It's odd to refer to war as "enjoyable" but I think you know what I mean.
And as for the Intruder...come on, it is the sexiest flying machine ever made!
Okay, there are certainly other contenders for the most all-around kick-ass airplane.
But the Intruder has to be on the short list.
The P-51 Mustang and the Corsair are really good too.
The F-18 Hornet...I'll admit, I was not happy when they first came on scene.
Like everyone else of my vintage, the Tomcat was THE flying machine.
But when I stood on the shores of Lake Erie, and a Blue Angel Hornet 'BUZZED' my head......
WOW!!
IIRC, what Cole was kicking was the rotary drum that housed the DIANE software's memory (some sort of core rope memory system) which apparently could get physically stuck. I believe it may have been mentioned in the Fighter Pilot Podcast Intruder episode, but not sure.
"Nineteen fifties technology in the nineteen seventies".
Drum memory and core memory are two different things; core memory doesn't have moving parts, but drum memory sure does -- a magnetic cylinder, like a hard disk in tubular form, with words of memory on tracks read by a fixed array of heads.
Absolutely enjoyed this! As a military aviation historian this is one of my favorite movies.
Still awaiting for part two!
Part 2 now , Mover. I've always loved this movie.
I loved this breakdown. My college RA's dad was a marine corps Intruder pilot. Col. out of Orange County. It cracked me up from the old hydraulics, he was all upper body strength and little legs.
As long as you're going old skewl, gentlemen, I'd love to see you ruin "Bat-21" Gene Hackman plays Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton shot down in Nam and something, SERE, something golf course? The Birddog scenes with Danny Glover are fantastically entertaining. Just a suggestion from an old Jarhead Grunt. You might like ruining it.
I second this. Bat-21 was really good!
Based on a true story too!
Yes! BAT 2-1!
Great movie and I 3rd or 4th that.
Danny did not fly a Birdog in BAT-21, he flew a Cessna O-2A Super Skymaster twin. The O-1 is a single engine, high wing aircraft with non retractable tail dragger landing gear, while the O-2 has retractable tricycle landing gear, also known as the Model-337, to Cessna.
Been a long time since I watched the movie or read the book. Guess I need to do both again soon. Thanks for doing this one Mover!
"it's better than topgun, the new one" Good point Mover!
One of my favorite aviation movies from the 90's. Looking forward to Part 2.
I saw this flick in the cinema when it first came out, and I just watched it at home (again) last week. I’ve always enjoyed it. As much as I’ve liked Top Gun, Flight of The Intruder always felt more authentic and organic, and less Hollywood. Maybe I need to read the book. I enjoyed the commentary from Mr. Mover and Mr. Wombat, and I’m looking forward to part 2.
You should DEFINITELY read the book....heck, read the whole series, it's all great.
When I was in, our Flight Doc used to ride with us and he loved it. He was an amateur photographer for his hobby and used to like to take his camera along. I was Guard and my civi job was flying a Cessna Caravan at the time for a DZ .We flew to it and he got some great ppictures.
One of my favorite movies of all time, regardless of genre. Willem Dafoe's character was cool.
I remember watching this at the theater in Ridgecrest, CA. They had a special viewing for our squadron at China Lake. I know that there were portions of the movie where RC models were used and those flying sequences were filmed out there.
I watched this again a month or so ago, probably the 10th time I’ve watched it. Great movie, wish they had continued it. Hard to believe this movie bombed at the box office, no pun intended…
RIP Brad "cool hand" Johnson, died this past February.
One of my favorite books & movies, I fell in love with the Intruder after reading the books(sorry Tomcat fans) and always wanted to fly one. I don't know how accurate a lot of the movie is, but I do remember talking to Vietnam Era B/N that said they were told to kick the computer to restart the rotors....the felt that a fair amount of the movie was true to life. While the events might never have happened, the details to support things were spot-on.
I've been waiting for this one. Definitely one of the greats, and yes, the Intruder is STILL a sexy plane.
You're 100% right: those pilots and NFOs were a different breed.
Best mover ruins movie yet! This thing is so accurate there’s hardly any ruining happening haha
This was a staple of my youth and in 1996 I got to fly the A-6 WST (sim) at NAS Whidbey Island. My wife was a turd shirt in VAQ-129 (Prowlers). Nice job Wombat....great commentary!)
I remember playing the Flight of the Intruder flight sim in 1990 after reading the book! It was developed by the same company that did Falcon, Spectrum Holobyte. Instead of being the usual arcade movie tie-in, it tried to be a realistic simulator, replicating the actual navigation and bombing procedures. Unfortunately, in spite of the primitive graphics, it was still too demanding for my Commodore Amiga, but I still had fun. It's too bad they haven't made a real Vietnam-era flight sim since then. (I mean, DCS might have the planes, but does it simulate the GCI and SAM systems of the time?)
From what I've seen so far, it does a decent job of it....it's more based in the mid to late 80's or WW 2 though; not so much Viet Nam. However, what it does depict it appears to do it VERY well.
I got the book with the game (Amiga!) for Christmas one year. It's what started my interest in Coonts, Clancy, Dale Brown, etc.
This was fun to watch! I'm not military, but appreciate our service men and women and the things they do to protect our freedoms. My sincere thanks to you both. FOTI is one of my all time favorite movies and I've always enjoyed it more than Top Gun, maybe because my dad served in Vietnam. I read my dad's copy of the book first as a pre-teen and then saw the film and loved it. Gotta admit - my affection is in no small part due to the A-6 which I just think is the coolest, most badass looking airplane. It gave me great pleasure to see Wombat's enjoyment of this film and also hear someone else comment on how cool the A-6 is. Most think it's ugly but I think it's a beautiful aircraft.
Mover - im ashamed, you said earlier you would not do Flight of The Intruder because you did not have anyone as a source for the A-6 to verify information, nor did you feel it was worthy of creating.
I offered you to contact someone who was an A-6 driver in Vietnam on the A and B models, but you never got back to me.
-----------------------------
so i have info from an actual A-6 driver, who was the father of one of my childhood best friends.
Right after Coolhand says nag-nag-nag
3:30 - this is the RADAR ALT indicating low level altitude based on the Altitude Bug, the A model lacked the info from the weapons system to indicate safe dropping altitudes for weapons selected. This was not included until the B Model. 505 was an A-6A. 520 flying IronHand was a B model.
The RADAR Scope was an authentic scope, however the icons for the search radar are wrong for the era, they filmed the cockpit scenes from an A-6E which is all they had. the A-6A had much more simplistic icons as symbology, not animated, which the A-6E improved upon. the biggest notice was the enemy RADAR, it was not animated like this. it was just a simple icon with some info to determine the type of RADAR.
'Ground Lock' this is the actual screen the BN saw.
"Jam em up - were jamming" Morg was punching random keys into the weapons stores management which was not the correct panel for the ECM Controls, that was a panel below and to the left of the SMS panel.
5:00 and 5:07 "YOU'RE TOO HIGH" - actually, he was right on the money according to the Ball.
9:22 - Navy Supported FoTI - Absolutely, they allowed multiple filming sequences with live launches and all with the repainted aircraft and crews on deck.
9:50 - look really close at this Intruder, its actually a TRAM A-6E, but the Ball Turret has been removed at the request of Paramount, and Navy Electronics Techs put a piece of metal covering over the TRAM Turret position, you can see the seam of the plate. Also note worthy was the ECM antennas that are correct for the TRAM, but not the A Model.
11:55 - those 4 blade hamilton props are the best sounding props the US DoD Ever had!
19:45 - Wern't those the fuel indicators, - no, they are the Engines N1, N2, FF and EGT Slider Tapes, just like the B-1's same layout.
21:50 - Boxman's shoot down was a tribute to one of the actual USS Independence's A-6 Crews lost to a SAM shootdown.
23:58 - this was actually quite common for the computers to fail. they were pre-solid state and relied on a significant majority of analog and vacuum tube based systems. they failed quite often, and yes, according to my source, failed exactly like that.
Fun fact- the A-6 was the first combat aircraft to feature a advanced failure detection system, known as BACE ( Basic Automated Checkout Equipment ) and was the predecessor to BITS.
23:45 - "I think I got it" this was something BACE could do - yet another first ever for a combat aircraft, it could restart the Computers and potentially recover the failure of the data by checksum checking the data loaded into the computers before a mission. If it recovered, it would restart the mission programming and pickup where the failure left off and do a quick Navigation check, once the aircraft figured out where it was, it resumed the mission parameters.
24:48 - "LAUNCH" again, this is the RADAR Altimeter indicator. it was 100% based on the Altimeter Bug, it was NOT used for alerting to incoming missiles or "Safe Drop" levels in the A-6A. so this would not be flashing red unless they were below the Altitude Bug setting, not by a missile launch which the "MISSILE" was the alerting indicator along with the RWR and Threat Indicator.
Fun Fact - These are accurate sounds the A-6 portrayed for various types of missile launches, the sound that was NOT accurate was the MiG-15/17 lock-on. that would be a 4 tone alternating rapid pulse. And most of the MiG-15/17's of the era did not even have a RADAR to begin with, hence why Cole said to lockup the Ground RADAR that was guiding him. If that MiG had its own RADAR which certain variants of MiG-15/17 had RADAR the ground station would have been redundant since the MiG would have acquired them on its own RADAR and no longer needed vectoring. we cannot determine that here as we cannot see the intake clearly enough to see if the small RADAR Bulge is present.
25:30 - All that jinking around must have thrown off the ACU - yup, the jinking from the SAM detonation caused a failure that blew out the ACU Circuit breakers, hence the come back to bomb again, Cole states - Check the ACU Breakers. Coolhand reaches behind the center console and presses in 5 circuit breakers. This is the actual ACU Breaker location, 5 of them. one for each respective weapons pylon.
Thank you so much for this! 👍🏿👍🏿
Correction made for the Lock-On audio that being the MiG. the ZSU-23 AAA Gun alert is correct.
@@Nghilifa no problem, my friend's father was actually willing to give info about this, but Mover never got back to me.
I was waiting for Mover Ruins Movies to review FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER (1991). It's one of my favorite movies and can see why! Thank you!
Stephen Coonts, who wrote the book the movie was based on, was an actual A6 pilot in Vietnam, apparently with 1600 hours on A6s, and 305 carrier landings. The movie used A6-Es, rather than Vietnam era As and Bs.
"Those guys in Vietnam were just a different breed"
Yeah, I realized that when some oldhead aviator was talking about trying to find a 4th award silver star sticker for his car. Just...nice.
This should have been called "Mover Enjoys Movies" instead. It's a good movie.
Thank you for doing this movie.
Part 1
1. I was stationed onboard the USS Independence (CV-62) when this was filmed.
2. The author Stephen Coonts also wrote "Under Siege" staring Steven Seigal and Tommy Lee Jones.
3. They did a fair job of the mock-up of the Philippines. (Was filmed in Mexico)
4. I was a reader, so I used that library often.
One of the reasons it's better than Top Gun is because it's from John Milius.
nice work, Mover & Wombat.
I loved this flick ... y'all are fairly entertaining yerselves. :P
thanks for putting thisone on the channel.
Give me this movie over any top gun movie. Love the F14 but the comic-book flying of top gun kind of lets it down.
This movie holds a special place for me. Thank you for your review/video of this one. I watched and enjoyed it while going down memory lane.
When do we get Part 2?
Stephen Coonts was at the EAA Oshkosh Fly In book signing when this book was released. I purchased the book and had him autograph it. One of my favorite all time authors. He was an instructor pilot at NAS Kingsville in VT22 when I was a maintainer on the TA4J. Great review guys. You can't ruin this one :).
One of my high school science teachers was married to an A-6 B/N, and getting to see them up close (along with this movie) made me fall in love with the Intruder. It wasn't the prettiest plane, but it was highly effective at its job. I've been waiting for Mover's take on this movie for a long time. So glad to finally see it.
Soon after the movie was made, I talked to the pilot/owner of the Skyraider that flew wingman in the movie. They shipped the AC from Texas to Hawaii to film the final scene. If you look carefully, you can see a window in the fuselage: it was originally an AD-4 night fighter with a radar operator in the fuselage.
In Coonts' book The Cannibal Queen he tells some stories of some of the classic aircraft used in the film. An A4 was borrowed from a museum, and someone noticed it was a later A4 with the humpback. They owner agreed to remove the housing to play an older model
I have this movie on disc and saw it when it first came out many moons ago and watch it a few times a year. One of the best Viet Nam movies ever made. My oldest brother is a Nam vet, Army, Spec 4 out of Phu Bai, radio intercept and relay. Nam vets still to this day do not get the respect they deserve.
So glad you finally did this movie! I have been waiting a long time for your to review this one!
The cover of the paperback of this book WORKED. Totally caught my eye in the grocery store back in the day. So glad. Awesome book; vivid descriptions of flying. Good story also.
at last, this is so good. The book was good, but I remember seeing the film at the cinema and I was blown away, the A6 was amazing, Grumman made some amazing planes
LtCol Paul Brown Was my CO at EL Toro in 1984. He was an Intruder navigator during Viet Nam. Ha was shot down and was a POW in the Hanoi Hillton...you guys just gave me some insight into what he did albeit he was USMC...he was a good man. Thanks, guys.
Loved the movie and Love the intruder!! I was in the corps from 80 to 84..Watched them in action!! One great plan in them days!
I like that in the cockpit scenes several times they show the aircraft BUNO. I feel it's a small but important detail and it's much appreciated!
So glad you finally got to this one! Can’t wait for Part 2!!!
Glad y'all finally did a 'ruins movies' about this.
Wombat...
@16:55 "you literally worked together as a crew, you needed that guy"
The same is true for EA-18Gs. Especially now with the two less EW nerds that the EA-6B had.
On my second go-around at Whidbey, I was a sim operator for the Growlers, and yes... the EWO and Pilot (SAMC; Single Anchor Master Class) still definitely have to work together. The CIs (contract instructors) in the sim still teach crew-coord to the level they did back with the old A-6s and EA-6s. And I know they practiced it in the air.
@17:14 "see I think they have people that knew this mission"
They literally filmed most of this up at NAS Whidbey (in-sim for cockpit views/cascade and olympic low level routes) and talked to the old guys who flew A-6As and Bs.. those that flew the SkyPig in it's pre-TRAM (tgt recognition attack multisensor) days. The film crews also talked to aircrew from my old squadron, VMAQ-4. When I first got there, we still flew the EA-6As and fired the AGM-45 Shrike, I think it even gets mentioned in this movie.
All that being said, great review. Keep up the good work. I'll be waiting for part 2.
Thanks mover I've been asking you to do this one for ages
I've been waiting for this one for sooo long...
This is one of my favourite childhood movies, so let's see how it goes!
A shining part of this movie is the soundtrack too along with so much authentic footage.
The "I want to smell it" line, I worked for the Navy at NAS Meridian. Meridian is 1 of 2 NAS that are the Navy's UPT, also most other Nations that have Naval Aviation send their pilots thru the training. I was there when the UK started sending their pilots thru a few years before HMS Queen Elizabeth was commissioned to get current on Flight Deck Ops and CATOBAR quailed to then go on to a Hornet Squadron. On a CQ det, I literally had a Royal Navy Commander say something extremely similar, it was his 1st time back on a boat since the Royal Navy decommissioned their boats, he did something similar, he looked off into the distance and took it all in.
Amazing one Mover & Wombat.
You really brought great vibe, and I'm too hyped now to watch this movie of beautiful Intruders!
Cool to see "Wombat" is such a fan of Grumman aircraft I grew up a few blocks from Grumman on Long Island NY. I loved seeing all the planes taking off. The A6 was awesome to see heading out to wherever it would be put to work. Plenty of E2 Hawkeyes were built here as well and were constantly overhead.
Grumman Iron Works
This is great, gonna dl the movie and watch it again! Glad you brought Wombat with ya on this one!
So glad to see the two of you doing this movie. I loved the book when I read it, and this came out right at the top of the run-up to Iraq I. Hope all's well with you, and thanks for all you do.
I've always thought it was the most under-rated and underappreciated military aviation theme movie out there. Thanks for bringing it to light. The book was pretty good, too.