Worst movie aviation scenes

[jslugman]

Post what you feel are the worst aviation scenes from cinema or television. Feel free to go into excruciating detail.

[jslugman]

EXECUTIVE DECISION

A hollowed out afterburned-equipped F-117 Stealth Fighter, named the Remora, has a belly hatch and can carry what looks like a small battalion of specops operators. Called into service for a hijacking, it uses an extendable tunnel, reminiscent of a robotic geoduck, to connect it with the engineering panel underneath the Jumbo to transfer a crack commando team onboard and save the day. Starring Kurt Russel as the techno-geek and Steven Segal as the commander who, through the only true slice of screenwriting genius in the movie, dies early on.

http://www.zuguide.com/#Executive-Decision

[Joe Copalman]

Any of the dogfight sequences on J.A.G. or Pensacola: Wings of Gold.  They were always just confusing mish-mashes of air-to-air footage from Top Gun and what I'm guessing were numerous air show videos.  The scene would be set up with an F-14 engaging an F-5 (Top Gun footage), and then out of nowhere, there's a quick flash of an F-15, then back to the F-14 v. F-5, then some east European MiG-29, then back to the Top Gun stuff.  Confusing as all hell.

[Joe Copalman]

I wouldn't necessarily say this is an example of the worst aviation movie scene, but it's bugged the hell out of me since I saw an advanced screening of Black Hawk Down.  There's a scene in which a pair of 160th SOAR AH-6s are standing by waiting to do strafe/rocket runs, but can't pick out the friendlies from the bad guys on the ground, and SSG Eversmann runs out into the open to toss an IR strobe on top of the building the Habr Gidr guys were shooting at them from, allowing the Night Stalker dudes to make their gun runs and RTB.  The air strikes during the battle of Mogadishu were controlled by Air Force Combat Controllers attached to TF Ranger, and it bugs me that the critical role they played was overlooked in the movie, with credit for the job they did being given to Rangers and Delta guys.  Actually, the Air Force PJs that took part in the operation were overlooked as well.  It's bad enough the Air Force got no love in that movie, but for credit for what they did to go to others is just a slap in the face.

[Jay Beckman]

Mine...
- The Panther "ramp strike" from Bridges At Toko Ri that's edited into Midway as a Wildcat landing accident.
- The "nap of the earth" ACM in Top Gun (beautiful cinematography .. totally bogus operational environment.)
- Just about any scene that obviously uses stock footage of commercial flying where it takes off as a 727 and lands as a 707 or DC-10.

Favorite:
- The droning of the radials on the 707 in Airplane! 

[cpasley]

You guys covered some good "worst of", i'd like to throw in the movie "Firebirds", probably some of the best aerial sequences with bad acting, Iron Eagle 3, cant believe how they butchered those warbirds I wont bother posting examples it was all bad but if I can I would like to post some of my favorites too

1.Flight of the Intruder - the end sequence with the skyraiders providing cover, awesome!
2.Apacolypse Now - Flight of the valkyrie huey scene
3.Memphis Bell - takeoff sequence
4.Always - many good scenes there

[Jeff D. Welker]

While I'm generally a big Clint Eastwood fan, the majority of the flying scenes in Firefox caused me to gag.

As a counterpoint, one of my all time favorites is One Six Right. Cinematography, musical score, A2A scenes - this movie/documentary is great from start to finish.

[F-16_fixer]

How could you guys overlook all the horrible scenes in Iron Eagle? 

And for a more modern movie let's look at Transformers 1... I felt the opening scenes were pretty good but when they fired the GAU-8 on the A-10 I was like WTF?  That doesn't even sound close to how it sounds.  Also I enjoyed the neon blue afterburners on the F-22's. 

[Brian Lockett]

In The LIving Daylights (Timothy Dalton's first outing as James Bond) a C-130 loses power, making the sound of a radial engine winding down, rather than a T56 turbine.

[Joe Copalman]

How could you guys overlook all the horrible scenes in Iron Eagle? 

I almost mentioned the plane vs. dirtbike race at the beginning.  It's been years since I've seen it though - the "Hades bomb" was a totally ridiculous, but then again, so was the premise of the movie. 

I found Iron Eagle II to be even more ridiculous.  At least in the first one, the "Migs" were a foreign type (Kfirs), and one that was rare outside Israel or South America.  In the second one, the "Migs" were F-4s, one of the most recognizable symbols of American airpower in the jet age.  Definitely thought that was a bit ridiculous.

[wingsnstuff]

The Navy actually acquired several Kfeir fighters as aggressor aircraft.  I believe they were flown out of NAS Oceana

[Joe Copalman]

Correct, then they went on to Yuma where VMFT-401 flew them for a while before transitioning to F-5s.  Pretty sure the Kfirs in Iron Eagle were IAF assets, as were the F-16s.  If I recall correctly, USAF did not give their blessing to the movie, so the producers farmed out the air-to-air stuff to Israel.

[Jay Beckman]

Correct, then they went on to Yuma where VMFT-401 flew them for a while before transitioning to F-5s.  Pretty sure the Kfirs in Iron Eagle were IAF assets, as were the F-16s.  If I recall correctly, USAF did not give their blessing to the movie, so the producers farmed out the air-to-air stuff to Israel.

At least some of the air to air footage in Iron Eagle was created with 1/4 scale R/C models shot from a helo.

I remember seeing one of the Kfirs and one of the F-16s at a hobby show in Toledo, OH about a year after Iron Eagle was released.

[bilwor]

One was at Willie Day 1989. See my post under military.
bill word