Hollywood!!

Your right Sal,

No direct delivery in that situation. I was lucky, in the eight years I was the dangler on the hook,  I had only competant Flight Mechanic's that wouldn't dare hoist me alone with a cable that bad, let alone TWO on it. They would most likely put us back in the water, cut the cable and use the quick splice, yep we carry them too. HOLLYWOOD!

Also in my time in Alaska, we never flew anywhere ALONE. There was always a C-130 for top cover or another helo within shouting distance, ours or ANG, or a CG cutter. . .as a last resort.

I knew both ASTC Flythe, the bald guy with the 'stash in the movie and AST1 Bob Watson, skinny guy, got to yell for them to get out of the pool. Flew with them in Alaska and here in Michigan with 'Butch' Flythe. Butch was also an insructor at E-city when I was going through the swimmer program wayyyyyy back in '89. Bob just retired a month ago, now he had some really hairy rescues in Alaska. . .oh and E-8's don't stand duty of any type, might be on recall if the big one goes up, or a fill in an emergency, but not a beeper carrying swimmer.

Don

Yeah, I went and took mom and the girls to see tyhe Guardian as well.  Hey, SAR pic with a storyline taking place in Alaska...of courtse I had to see it.  Funny thing is (like Don's wife) my girls were pointing out some of the gaffs in the film.  ANyway, all in all I thought it was worth the money.

Hey Don,

Now you know my background so my biggest question was with the last scene.  While we don't carry around a spare hoist cable, I do know we have a hoist cable splice.  Didn't (don't) you guys have the same thing?  Coulda short hauled them to shore depending on where the splice was.  Or hows about toss em a MA-1 kit and wait for #2 to show up.  I will say that I don't think we woulda done a direct hoist given that scenario.  Better to put me in the water and let me work up to the vessel.  Same deal on recovery,,,take em into the water first.  Just looked like too much rigging and heaving.  Bottom line is any FE worth his salt would have DEFINATELY done a hoist cable inspection after the strike.

Damn!!!!!!  also didn't realize the ole' Hawk blew up so easily

Blackhawk Down....everyone here who knows me knows how I feel about that one.  BTW, Wilky beat cancer and is back at Hurby as a civilian working with the STS.  If you ever need advice on good cigars or labrador retreivers, he's the man.

I heard a couple of veterans told Clint Eastwood they couldn't tell where he spliced in the actual footage and his hollywood stuff. . . Clint didn't use actual footage, so if those guys thought it was pretty good I'll ignore the critics.

Don

HeavyArty wrote:

BHD was very good.  It had some of the survivors as tech advisors and the full support of the DoD as well.  The helos were flown by actual 160th SOAR pilots, some of them were on the mission that day in '93 too.  It is in a totally different class than the above mentioned fictional jokes.

Having been in Mogadishu when that particular incident took place, I agree that the movie was good and "got it right" for the most part.. The only technical gaffes that I noted took nothing away from the movie itself.  The streets weren't narrow enough (yeah, I know they couldn't film it in "the Mog" and had to settle for Morocco),  there weren't enough "militia" (the media's term for those street gangs - not mine) and the Little Birds were in the air all night long instead of the short periods of time insinuated by the film. What was left out of the film was that the Italians had a butt load of  Armor at the port but didn't use it.

As a matter of fact, I didn't see them do much of anything the entire seven months that I was there. They had at least five CH-47s but I only saw them fly one of them once for about two hours. They did hit us up on a regular basis (at least weekly) for spare UH-1 parts though.

Jonathan Primm

Youngsville, LA 

Hey Everyone I can feel your pain at Hollywood but i have two words to make everyone groan with disgust

"IRON EAGLE"

dkmacin wrote:

Chuck Pfarrer, author of  Warrior Soul, and screen writter for US Navy Seals, said in an interview, that by the time his screen play was disected by 5 producers, two directors and every relative they had that "knew of certain elements" the actual author did not, it read nothing like he had written. "I give 'em filet mignon and they grind it into baloney." This is the reason many authors are demanding final approval of screen plays.

Ironically, when Mark Bowden wrote the first draft of the screenplay for BHD he assumed that the book had too much going on to be a successful movie. He wrote what he thought would be needed, compressed and combined a lot, and left out a lot of the details from the book. It was Jerry Bruckheimer and Ridley Scott who told him that they wanted to include so much detail that the movie would almost be a documentary.

Agreed.

One of the problems the military faces when working with hollywood is the lack of experience the military liason has! Might be a newbe or might be a "ship guy", advising for the aviation movie,or "air guy", advising for the ships,  that really has no clue as to how it is really done, he/she just might be interested in getting the job done and having the branch of service shown in the right light, realism be darned.  Also, the hollywood types have their own ideas, realism be darned, just make it explode!

Chuck Pfarrer, author of  Warrior Soul, and screen writter for US Navy Seals, said in an interview, that by the time his screen play was disected by 5 producers, two directors and every relative they had that "knew of certain elements" the actual author did not, it read nothing like he had written. "I give 'em filet mignon and they grind it into baloney."

This is the reason many authors are demanding final approval of screen plays.

Don

Agreed on BHD and reading the book.  It did help to know wat they were portraying. 

I was really referring to some of the othermovies mentioned, like, "The Marine", "Top Gun", "Behind Enemy Lines", etc... 

I never said it was a joke, though parts are laughable.

I just wonder why certain things are allowed to be so inane as to make the entire process totally unrealistic.

BHD was a good, but unless you read the book you were left out of what was going on.

Don

I liked Black Hawk Down.  Not being a pilot or anything, I thought it was good.  I heard that they  had some 160th pilots flying them (or something like that).

curtis remington wrote:

behind enamy lines II looks super hollywood

The first one sucked and was pure Hollywood too.

Sort of like the difference between the original Memphis Belle and the remake huh?

The original was shot during WWII so it was, any way you cut it, propaganda.The remake was just, dare I say it again? HOLLYWOOD!

Don

AH1Wsnake wrote:

The worst one is yet to come, boys. Previews for "The Marine" look completely laughable.

What that looks like real life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Screaminhelo wrote:

dkmacin wrote: I was happy for a perfect hover in 30 knot winds. . .   Don I'm just happy when I can get them to hold a hover instead of a figure eight with or without wind. Mac

LoL, yep I'm with ya on that one.

I told you, HOLLYWOOD.

Don

The worst one is yet to come, boys. Previews for "The Marine" look completely laughable.

SSgtD6152 wrote:

dkmacin wrote: I was happy for a perfect hover in 30 knot winds. . .   Don   but what was it the Navy guys called them at the bar?

TOPGUN!TOPGUN! That's right, when the squids needed help getting ol' Mav and Goose outta the water, who'd they call? It weren't the squids.

Don

dkmacin wrote:

I was happy for a perfect hover in 30 knot winds. . .   Don

I'm just happy when I can get them to hold a hover instead of a figure eight with or without wind.

Mac

dkmacin wrote:

I was happy for a perfect hover in 30 knot winds. . .   Don

but what was it the Navy guys called them at the bar?

My favorite movie of all time is GrandPrix, finally available on DVD, but I had to see The Guardian. . .I was hoping they wouldn't screw it up too bad, they did. I especially loved the part when the helicopter lands in "Kodiak" and right there on the side for all to see the nice black letters on the top it reads: "ASTORIA".

Granted I went to RS school way back when was only a two week indoc at USCG Air Sta Elizabeth City NC, then four weeks at NAS Pensacola, But I know for a fact AST (the PC name for the RS rate now) school is not on Barksdale AFB, or near Louisana for that matter.

AND then. . .having only one HH65C taxi by the camera was just rude!

Don

grandadjohn wrote:

That's why I wait for DVD's

I was happy for a perfect hover in 30 knot winds. . .

Don

Not to date myself, but I learned a long time ago when the I stood up with the rest of the Firefighters of the world and waved the BULLSH*# flag with Backdraft to just keep clicking my flight boots together and say "it's only a movie, it's only a movie, it's only a movie". It's done wonders for my blood pressure and my wife will actually watch military and medical stuff with me now!

I am still in awe of the airmanship of the crew in The Perfect Storm. If only everyone could hold a perfect hover on 100+ knot winds...............

It was between Flyboys and The Guardian, Looks as if we would have gotten it wrong on both tries.

My wife was very reluctant to see The Guardian with me, as if I would stand in the theater and yell at the screen. . .like at home. I knew the HH60 exploded upon impact with the water from the trailers, so that didn't bring me to my feet. . .most of the time was spent trying to keep my wife seated!!

Don