Last night, AMC showed Catch-22. Kind of a dud of a movie, except for the stunning opening sequence where all 18 of the B-25's do a short-interval takeoff. Gives me chills to watch every freakin' time.
Many moons ago, we had the opportunity to work with Tallmantz Aviation and get to know Frank Tallman and Frank Pine (Tallmantz's chief pilot). I don't know as I've seen many pilots come close to their ability and experience level....it was just amazing.
But Frank Pine was telling us about filming Catch-22, and about the unofficial 'check ride' he gave to each one of the B-25 pilots. The Tallmantz 'camera ship' B-25 had an 'open' camera position in the tail (similar to what the Challenge Publications plane has). Pine strapped in to the tail position, and let his legs hang out in the slipstream. As he was filming, he had each one of the pilots fly in trail and slowly close in until he could reach out and rest his feet on the nose of the plane. If the pilots could hold formation like that, he'd give them the thumbs up, and they passed the check.
I'm sure air-to-air refuelling between two 'heavys' is, in itself, a kind of aerial ballet...but I would give my left nut to see the camera footage that Pine shot while they were doing that. That's some REAL pilot s*#t, Mav!
I don't know if they even breed pilots like that anymore.
Speeddemon
Many moons ago, we had the opportunity to work with Tallmantz Aviation and get to know Frank Tallman and Frank Pine (Tallmantz's chief pilot). I don't know as I've seen many pilots come close to their ability and experience level....it was just amazing.
But Frank Pine was telling us about filming Catch-22, and about the unofficial 'check ride' he gave to each one of the B-25 pilots. The Tallmantz 'camera ship' B-25 had an 'open' camera position in the tail (similar to what the Challenge Publications plane has). Pine strapped in to the tail position, and let his legs hang out in the slipstream. As he was filming, he had each one of the pilots fly in trail and slowly close in until he could reach out and rest his feet on the nose of the plane. If the pilots could hold formation like that, he'd give them the thumbs up, and they passed the check.
I'm sure air-to-air refuelling between two 'heavys' is, in itself, a kind of aerial ballet...but I would give my left nut to see the camera footage that Pine shot while they were doing that. That's some REAL pilot s*#t, Mav!
I don't know if they even breed pilots like that anymore.
Speeddemon
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