Firefox...not the browser :-)
 

I just saw Firefox on telly, first time I have seen it in ages. I remember sneaking in to see this at the cinema when it was released. I was well under age for it but bluffed it through to get in.
I think this was the first film to trully fire up my enthusiasm for aerial combat, that dogfight between the two firefoxes at the end blew me away at the time. I really wanted to play a game with that dogfight. Surprised how well the fx hold up after all these years. Some great manuvers in there and it still gets the pulse racing when they drop down guns on in the canyon.
So anyone else got a fav dogfight from films?

Battle of Briatain is still my favorite airplane movie. No special effects or trick photography, just lotsa realy cool airplanes making lotsa noise :cool:
My Dad took me to see it when it first came out ('68?) and I've loved flying ever since.

Of coarse, the original comedy "Airplane" is also tough to beat LoL

I remember that movie... it had Clint Eastwood in it as a veteran tortured by flashbacks, sent to the USSR to steal their super-advanced new plane that could be controlled by the pilot's thoughts (!!!) Back during the Cold War, there were endless rumors about secret technology the USSR was developing. Firefox was based in part on speculation about the Mig-25 foxbat, which isn't a dogfighter at all, of course in the movie the planes moved at high speed and impossible g's too. I remember Clint Eastwood stole the Firefox with the regular controls, and so the Russians sent the other one which was fully functional. And the spy who helped him steal the plane shot himself in the head.

The Soviets made fun of Firefox and the Hollywood Rambo genre in general with their movie "Solo Voyage" (одиночное плавание) which featured an American special forces vet tortured by funny flashbacks of people eating rice in Vietnam. And the heroes flew around in a little Ka-27 chopper.

My favorite dogfighting movie is still the Blue Max, cause it has the most accurate fighting. There was also a good descending spiral in Tora! Tora! Tora! when the two Americans took off to fight the Zeros. I haven't seen the Red Baron yet, but I've heard it's good.

I thought the fighting in Top Gun was pretty lame. Most of it was just a montage of shots strung together without really making sense.

Worst air combat movie I've seen in recent years was Stealth.

This is actually harder than I thought it would be... Battle of Britain is a good shout, Anyone seen tora tora tora? There's some good stuff in that. It's old tho.

Oh... I know.. Return of the Jedi.

Thanks for the recommendation I just added it to my netflix que.:-P

I love Firefox, despite the cheesy flashbacks and "think in Russian!" thing.
Best to watch it as a spy flick with some cool stealth fighters than a "flight" movie. Good times and a damn cool looking fighter.

The funny thing about the film is that most of the design of the aircraft was pretty much "cutting edge" real tech at the time. The forward canards for instance, and the cockpit instruments and controls. The plane had FLIR/AG&AA passive radar and active radar, analogue and digital read outs, rear aspect cam, had an angular design like the F117 (implying stealth), super cruise engines, internal weapon bays (again implying stealth).

What the film really showed was that the US was already way beyond the Russians in aircraft technology thinking and they didnt even realise it. They were assuming that the Russian boffins were near to or keeping pace with them on development.

I saw Battle of Britain and Tora Tora Tora (tora tora was great), I still need to see Blue Max and Firefox. I also have being waiting for the Red Baron to come out (it says "in theatres April" :S), I saw Flyboys lol.

There is Red Tails coming out in 2010, and I just noticed that there a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen already titled "Tuskegee Airmen" odd :) (came out 1995, just found it on youtube too, popcorn ready hehe)

Weird as it may be, the first aerial combat movie I saw was Independence Day lol (poor old man, his missile jammed)

Add me to those people who feel that CGI still can't compare to footage of real planes. Battle of Britain is great, as is the Czech film Dark Blue World, which used computers to modify a lot of the unused footage from Battle of Britain! Much better than using all-CGI effects.

I also agree The Blue Max is awesome. It is also one of the few aerial combat movies that is interesting as a character study. The action is great too; the CGI in Flyboys looks ridiculously fake in comparison.

I don't want to veer off too far into science fiction shows, but I did love the dogfight between the Marine colonel and Chiggy Von Richtofen in Space: Above and Beyond -- awesome use of Beethoven's Funeral March for the music! Battlestar Galactica should get a mention -- almost every space battle was great -- but with the fighters moving realistically in space, it probably shouldn't be considered "dogfighting" anymore.

I guess you must never watch TV if you've never seen The Blue Max. It's a great classic. Red Baron was released a while ago, it's been available on dvd and blu-ray for some time.

The US was nervous about the Soviet planes because they were confused by the mig-25 and the su-27, which they thought were the same plane. They thought it was a mach-3.2 plane that could also dogfight.

I don't think the US was ahead of the Russians as far as dogfighting planes went. Mig-29's can handle f-16's, and su-27's and f-15's are about even. The US has developed stealth but the Russians have developed OVT. Stealth tech won't last as long as OVT.

The Red Baron is out on DVD, but not here in the US. For some reason, they've decided to hold off on a US release or something? I would love to get my hands on a copy though, so maybe I'll have to get one from Amazon.de?

Anyway, I agree that OVT will last longer than Stealth tech. I mean there are no other countries in the world that are using stealth as an offensive measure besides the US. France, Britain, Germany, etc. etc. are all either keeping with what they have or just modifying their current stuff to accommodate the changing times. Russia is smart because they're not over thinking their bounds, and are keeping with OVT. While the US is definitely over thinking the situations. I don't think there are any current US enemies or threats that are using technology for or against stealth planes. :P

has anyone seen this? :S

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyjNI...eature=related

Thats a classic scene. I remember seeing that on TV when I was a kid. The aircraft carrier gets sucked through some time vortex to Pearl Harbour just before the Japanese attack.
Speaking of Pearl Harbour, the film was rubbish but there were some nice scenes when the US fighters finally take off. Only about 2 minutes worth though.
Red Barron was good but the ground based drama was pretty poor.
Blue Max and Battle Of Britain of course are the best.
Nobody mentioned Aces High. That was pretty disturbing to see as a young kid. I always remember the guy jumping from his plane burning all the way down

Cheers for posting that clip edal, brightened up Monday morning no end :)
Although now I want to watch the whole film - I love Final Countdown.

Probably a stupid question guys, but what's "OVT"?

Those are some great films.... but you all seem to have missed out the best Air combat movie ever made - Iron Eagle! The story of a brave "All American" teenager, who steals an F16 and takes on an entire middle eastern country by himself (With a bit of help from Lou Gossett Jnr), just to save his dad... and, it has music by Queen.

The only possible film that can match that is Iron Eagle 3 (thanks for the correction DKwookie), when Lou Gossett Jnr gets together a bunch of WW2 pilots (one Yank, one Brit, A German, and one Japanese) to come out of retirement to fly one last mission... I can't find any youtube clips, but trust me, its awesome (In a cheesy, crap way)


In all seriousness though, Battle of Britain and The Blue Max are great movies, with awesome aerial photography. Some of the stuff in Top Gun is also pretty good (shame about the rest of the movie).
I'm looking forward to seeing George Lucas's film "Red Tails", about the Tuskogee airmen, but I suspect it will be a CGI filled cheesefest.

And speaking of George Lucas............

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OZq-tlJTrU

LOL, that was Iron Eagle 3 with the old aces.

Iron Eagle 4 is even worse, he goes into battle with a bunch of teenagers:

http://uk.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1610416921/

Quote of the day from that trailer
"Its two kids sir"
"Shoot them"

Otklanyayemi Vektor Tyagi, It's what we call deflection thrust vectoring

Go here to see it in action At 5mins 40 is it does super cobra which is very impressive.

Ah yes, the Final Countdown. 90 minutes of building up to what could have been an *incredible* alternate timeline flick...but not. LOL
If only there was a sequel with them still in 1941 kicking ass in that carrier!

Read Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham for a more pro-active take on that kind of situation. :)


The only things that really got shot down in Iron Eagle were the last remnants of respectability in Louis Gossett Jr's career.

Ermmm ok thanks :) Don't see how it beats stealth technology then...?

But I see you got taken by surprise by the auto-embedding of YouTube links too lol. I did first time I did it...

I found someone has a mod for Flight Sim 2004 to fly in the Mig 31 Firefox. Going to give it a try later.
Some youtube footage of it in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HknN4...eature=related

still a sweet looking design over 25 years later

Battle of Britain
Beware the hun in the sun
Nowm dakakakaka
You could teach monkeys to fly better than that.

I think that they think that stealth isn't the way..

They might have a point. Stealth is only stealthy until someone sees you. Or works out how to detect you. Maneuverability still counts.

You're right about youtube link... first one. :)

If you get killed before you even know you're a target, maneuverability is rendered moot :)

Surely BnZ works off this principle, no?

But yeah, if your stealth is compromised, then it is useless, obviously.

You're right and my inital thoughts on this were the same as yours..

But thinking about it from the russian point of view it makes more sense, they have some pretty good Air to Air counter measures and the thinking is that once the initial missile attack has been foiled (in principal) you're still going to have to be able to shoot the guy down, whilst avoiding being shot down yourself. American pilots in vietnam suffered greatly from having a lack of machine guns because American military thinking at the time was that they'd have killed the Mig with missiles long before the Mig ever saw the F4. Technology (especially in times of war) has a nasty habit of breaking.. a lot.

You can be as stealthy as you like but if your missiles miss then what..?

This leads to an interesting conunrum! Which one would you rather fly against the other? Sorry about the complete change of subject!

Yes, Stealth was a horrible film, but I thought the actual dogfights in the film were very good in an unrealistic ace combat kind of way (turns of 9 million G's)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQoii...eature=related

In Mexican you don't have to listen to the garbage script coming out their mouths lol (also the video quality was better than the engish on youtube.)

I think I found that for MS CFS way back when. Keep looking, where there's Firefox there's Airwolf. :grin:

Airwolf FTW! I knew there was another fan out there, and yes Firefox is one of my all time favorites. I remember being a little guy waiting for all that espionage crap to get over with so we could get to the flying. My favorite scene was when the Mig 31 goes screaming over the camera low level over the ocean and twin rooster tails of water shoot up.

Tora Tora Tora was pretty good, but I have a problem with T-6 Texans painted to look like Zeros. They just don't, and they certainly don't dogfight like Zeros. But since there are so few Japanese warplanes that are still flyable, I guess the movie makers really had little choice.

633 Squadron is another favorite, love those Mossies! Spielberg and Lucas never denied that they got their inspiration from older movies. All their stuff is very "formula", as are most money makers from Hollywood.

we speak spanish Amigo :)

Because Stealth tech is much more costly, than OVT. It's not always money, that makes things right. So OVT will be around much more longer because of price. :D

They've pretty much changed the translation to "orbital vectored thrust" lately.
The engine nozzles can be rotated independently to 15 degrees on each side, up-down, top-bottom, allowing crazy angle of attack and moves that make the old cobra look pedestrian.

I'm not sure if the mig ovt does this, but su-35 can also independently regulate the thrust of each engine, which allows it to keep the thrust outside the center of mass on turns and get crazy rotation power. It can do cobras that end in double backflips and do flat spins that barely lose altitude. It can also end tailslides sideways and has its own combat maneuver called "cobra roll" that uses the engine differential.

Why is ovt a good counter to stealth, because it stakes out the low-speed visual range combat, whereas stealth is based on higher-speed and beyond-visual range. The f-22 and f-35 are good fighters, but against the sukhois they would have to use high-speed tactics because they can't corner as well at low speed. That positions the stealth planes as more offensive, and the sukhois as more defensive, though they are still pretty fast.

Yeah the Mig29ovt can also move both nozels independantly.
See at 1:45. They move so life like, kind of scary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hiv0tPEMiic

Pretty cool. Has a MiG 29 ever won in air to air combat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_Q6Vb9xJM0

Watch at 1:25 & 2:35, The F-22 is just as impressive as anything else.

And both nozzles move independantly on this machine as well.

Edit: Now that I've read the entire thread, my post is a bit out of context. Also, it's funny that that Su-29 is red, white and blue.

i'd have to go with a sukhoi over a f22.
Steath technology with the advent of the anti stealth radar employed by the eurofighter and rafale is not all it's cracked up to be.
Plus haven't there been cases of f22 just losing all their electrics and dropping like rocks..... didn't something like that happen last year (i may be wrong).
And the fact you could have something like four sukhois to every one f22 in money terms
( did they ever make the su37 or was that just HAWX decieving me?)
Plus i like the idea of not having to store it in a temparature controlled hangar lol

I can see clearly that stealth is a one trick pony - but it "should" let you take the initiative. But can a plane not have both? Or is a stealth shape too unstable for OVT too?

oh yeah
 

sad but flight in it's space or terestrial form has intrigued me since star wars

Its expense that stop both on a single airframe. OVT can be used with stealth designs, its just extremely expensive to have both. The F22 when it was in pre-development (IE drawing board) was intended to have full 360 degree thrust vectoring but the sheer cost of development and contruction meant that they have to reduce the vectoring ability.

And a "cobra" manouvere is old hat now, its the "mongoose" thats the killer move. Check out some video's of the old X-31 program that was the test bed for full thrust vectoring. Its mind blowing stuff,

That's OK - the American tax payer has deep pockets ;):-P

Not this American taxpayer. It's not too late to modify the f-35 with ovt and remove the vtol.

Su-37 was a testbed, it was never intended for production. There were only 1 or 2 ever made. Same with su-47. That didn't stop Ace Combat and Hawx from having whole squadrons of them though. When I played the Hawx demo, and at the end saw 4 su-47's attacking me, I knew it was Ace Combat 7, except you couldn't use cockpit view.

PAK-FA is supposedly going to have both ovt and stealth. No doubt they'll put ovt on it, or all that testing was for nothing. But the Russian government is also putting heavy pressure on them to make a stealth plane. That's probably why it's so far behind schedule. They were supposed to roll out this year, now they say early next year.

Here chaps, check out this X-31 flight vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA8QXenJzgA

That's pretty crazy - its like that ridiculous movement in HAWX, except for real. Plus the plane looks very cool.

Also, someone mentioned Airwolf earlier in the thread... I absolutely loved that show. I bought the first season on DVD recently. Here's a tip: leave it as a fond memory. Seriously. lol :)

Here's the best bit IMO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXNwsQpQqqc

Truer words have never been spoken. I bought the first season as well forgetting I'm not a kid anymore. Now that I'm a crazy old man I couldn't do anything but pick apart the million inconsistencies per episode. "Dom, weapons to combat mode!" wait a minute, in that last shot of Airwolf blasting through the canyon you were already in combat mode!?! And lets not even talk about the stock footage used for "enemy aircraft".

I will say that it has one of my favorite television theme songs of all time and that vid you posted was sweet!!

No. In fact, the MiG-29 hasn't been used in any military action (dogfighting wise) in any sort. During the recent Russian Georgian dispute, I believe some MiG-29s were used to bomb a couple places.

But the sad news is that the MiG-29, isn't used much anymore by Russia and is being replaces by the larger MiG-35. They're both similar in looks, but the MiG-35 is a large build I believe? Somewhere I read, that the MiG-35 was/is in competition with Su's latest plane which I think is the Su-35... something? I can't remember the mark/designation off hand.

Thought the MiG-29 is still being regularly used by the smaller break away nations of the USSR. I think Germany uses the MiG-29 still, and so does Poland, Ukraine, and other Eastern European nations.

EDIT: Also, the MiG-35 is actually a bit longer in length than the MiG-29 and has Canards.

Not only is Airwolf pretty different when your eyes are what 25 years(?) older, but you also realize that season 1 was the ONLY thing remotely worth watching. The change of direction was horrible after the first season. Typical horrible cover bands like all shows back then too. LOL
Still gotta get the 1 dark lens glasses though. :grin:

Agreed, seasons two and three were putrid with the exception of Moffet's Ghost from the beginning of season two (man I sound like I know way too much about this :oops: thanks alot hulu.com). Let's not even go there with the "fourth" season, WTF was that all about?

Didn't you love how they never blacked out even though they were making break neck turns above mach 1? Ahh, the laws of physics and Airwolf...oil and water :grin:

What about Blue Thunder. The tv show was poor but I think the film is great. Not sure he could take out an f16 though.
Apparently Blue Thunder appears in Firefox. The scene where the Hinds fly over the refueling sub features a close up that looks like the adapted gazelle they used in the film the following year.
Anyone remeber Biggles film from the 80s?

Blue Thunder rocked. "Chk...catch you later" ;)

Unlike Airwolf, that is still awesome to this day. And it's only about £3 on DVD. Anyone else think helicopters are cooler than planes? (*Dons blashemy flame suit*)

:-) Not to forget JAFO. I remember when Blue Thunder was out at the flix the schoolground chatter was if it could take out the Firefox. Some kid was adament it could due to the scene where it takes out the F16. The Firefox fans cited that clint didnt even need to fire a shot to take out the second Hind, his jetblast took care of it.

Me I would call say Firefox, the Blue Thunder crew were more interested in peeping tommery than serious combat

I have to say yeah I find helicopters cooler. The Hind is my fav design flying machine. Pure firepower

LOL see - you can have the best of both worlds in a chopper :)

Yeah Hinds look mean. There was a Russian film on last night about some dudes in Afganistan, and they were just mooching around talking with a load of Hinds just nonchalantly hanging around in the background - just looking hard and cool. Like heavy duty wasps. Badass.

I love how a chopper moves compared to a plane. There's something about being able to strafe around your target while keeping your weapons focused. Harriers have the same level of awesomeness IMO (or any VTOL plane I guess).

This speaks for itself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5bl9...DC5263&index=0

My linux flash player doesn't work so good, but the Hind looks real impressive in the movie Afghaniskii Izlom, it's kind of like the Russian Apocalypse Now/Platoon. Lots of good chopper scenes.

Most amazing chopper I've seen is the ka-50, it can revolve in a circle while aiming at the same ground target.

and hey here's a real picture of the pak-fa prototype:

http://img13.nnm.ru/imagez/gallery/2...d3b2b_full.jpg

it will probably look something like that when rolled out. Looks like they stuck with the wide-fin design of the su-47.

That is pretty sweet - I especially like the (brief) shot at 0:57 where the camera is at about 4 o'clock to the pair of them.

I stumbled across this while looking for a cool clip - should give me something to watch this afternoon ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxn_i...eature=channel

That looks like a painting. The original it was based on looked photorealistic, and appeared in a magazine, where it was claimed to be a picture of China's in-development stealth fighter, the J-XX. It was debunked more than three years ago as CGI on china-defense.com, where I got the magazine scan.

You're right, I was fooled by it cause it looked different from all the CGI renderings that look like this, and looked like a photo.

[img]http://warfare.ru/thumb.aspx?img=070...005/2/lfi1.jpg[/img]

This is the most common rendering, so I guess it's what it'll look like. Still looks pretty cool. Looks like a UFO that grew wings and a fuselage.

Sukhoi still doesn't have any info at all about the plane on its site, even though it's supposed to roll out any month now.

Found a youtube vid of Aces High. This is a pretty harsh depiction of pilots in WW1, by far the darkest war film concentrating on air combat. This was released at the height of the 70s "downer phase" which produced some really interesting films. It contains some great air footage though, despite the dodgy rock track:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAhs9AVWihs