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When that movie came out, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum held a lecture one evening with some of the pilots and the director. I attended. The pilots made a point of how surprisingly difficult it was to maneuver against the slower, lighter, Zeros. At one point in the scene, you’ll see a Tomcat dive toward the water and flatten out just above the waves in order to get beneath the Zero. That was not originally scripted, but occurred as a result of the pilot’s frustration in dealing with the Zero. An admiral at the lecture said that when he first saw the scene before the film was released, he complemented the director, and then asked for the name of the pilot who nearly put his plane into the water.

When that movie came out, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum held a lecture one evening with some of the pilots and the director. I attended. The pilots made a point of how surprisingly difficult it was to maneuver against the slower, lighter, Zeros. At one point in the scene, you’ll see a Tomcat dive toward the water and flatten out just above the waves in order to get beneath the Zero. That was not originally scripted, but occurred as a result of the pilot’s frustration in dealing with the Zero. An admiral at the lecture said that when he first saw the scene before the film was released, he complemented the director, and then asked for the name of the pilot who nearly put his plane into the water.

On the "Final Countdown" special edition DVD they have a bunch of extras including interviews with the VF-84 Tomcat drivers, and an article from the Confederate Air Force's newsletter (at the time) about the filming of the movie.

Those VF-84 pilots actually had their a**es chewed out. At the premier of the movie at the Uptown Theater in DC.

By the CNO.

The CNO basically did the way too stereotypical "What the HELL were you doing with MY/THE TAXPAYERS airplane?!?!?!" thing on them. As they were trying to assure him that the aircraft never, ever, ever ("really it didn't sir!") depart controlled flight. Right - the pilot CLEARLY stalls the plane and recovers by going into Z-5 afterburner a few hundred feet above the water. Which given the usual reaction by the TF-30s on the A-model Tomcat suddenly being firewalled was a really lucky break for the pilot and RIO.

The CAF newsletter included had a great article on the guys flying the "Zeros" (viz-modded SNJ/AT6 Texans) during the shoot. During the "bounce" part of the scene there was a B-25 cameraship with a movie camera in the tail sitting a few hundred yards out in front of the Zeros. The briefing had the F-14s coming in fairly slow (give that the F-14's stall speed isn't that much lower than a Texans maximum speed) and conducting a nice flyby/peel-off.

Instead the F-14s came in transonic and the Zeros got caught up their wake vortexes. Ooooops. The Zeros getting bounced all over the place is real - they were flying with the canopies cranked open and one of the CAF pilots had his helmet - with his HEADSET - yanked clean off and thrown outside the aircraft. They actually thought he'd crashed - called in SAR - and then he does a wing-wagging flypast of the Key West NAS ramp.

Oh, and according to the VF-84 guys, Katherine Ross (who played the Senator's aide/speechwriter) was a Class-A B*tch. They ended up pulling all sorts of pranks on her in retailiation.

Anyways, Bert, if you can find it I really really really recommend the 2-disc DVD (might be on the Blu-Ray as well, but I don't have that one) Special Edition with all the extras. Just about the only thing they don't cover is how the VF-84 CO and XO (I think) were relieved of duty due to accepting certain "tokens of gratitude" (like a completely tricked-out ready room) from the Producer/Director (Kirk Douglas' son, Peter). So I've heard :-)

The Italians brought bombers and biplanes to the Battle of Britain. Reports by British pilots were that the biplanes were impossible to hit, but they were also not a threat to the Brits.