Making the Battle of Britain (Movie)

[Art]

I just saw an interesting documentary about the making of "The Battle of Britain" The movie started the trend to making war movies more authentic equipment wise. Now there were no computer graphics or computer animation back then so you had to use the real stuff, models or mock ups.

The Director said at the time there were 6 flyable Hurricanes in the world. They managed to get all six for the movie including one that was privately owned by a Canadian who flew it to the UK on the condition he could fly it in the movie. They went all over the UK scouring for Spitfires. They'd pull them off display put oil in them and see if they could fire them up and sometimes it actually worked. The "Spits" were all late models but a Spitfire IX with a and a 4 bladed prop was better than no "Spit" at all. All in all most of the Brit planes were in sad shape, held together with "bailing wire and chewing gum." This was not the case with the NAZI stand in Spanish contract Heinkels and ME 109s.

There was a constant fear of collisions especially when everybody was up at once. In one near disaster a squadron of Vulcan heavy bombers climbed right through a filming aerial combat scene. Incredibly, neither group of planes knew the other was there!

There was one flyable Stuka in the world and it was unavailable so all the Stuka scenes were done with mock ups and radio controlled models. For the same reason, unavailability, there were no DO17s, or JU 88s.

There was also a lot of miniature modelling of scenes that was overall quite well done.

Of course the ultimate evolution of this type of movie making was "Tora, Tora, Tora," Still one of the best documentary war movies ever made.

[togor]

I recall that the Spanish Messerschmidts may have been re-engined to Merlins or similar? I do remember watching the movie during my hard core "WW2 aviation" phase and seeing exhaust ports in the wrong place. As we know the DB600 was an inverted V-12 while the allied engines were not.

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A college professor I had was a technical advisor to "Tora, Tora, Tora". His classes on the history of WW2 in both Europe and the Pacific were very popular and a great way to soak up those mandatory Humanities credit requirements.

[barretcreek]

Interesting, thanks Art. Was in London when the 50th anniversary of the first flight of the Spitfire was commemorated. To be over the City; day before it was cancelled "due to mechanical problems". Brits knew better than to buy that line.

Nothing like blood and guts to stay awake in a Humanities course.

[Art]

I recall that the Spanish Messerschmidts may have been re-engined to Merlins or similar? I do remember watching the movie during my hard core "WW2 aviation" phase and seeing exhaust ports in the wrong place. As we know the DB600 was an inverted V-12 while the allied engines were not.

True. The HA112 as it was named by the Spaniards had either an Hispano-Suiza or Merlin Engine, the original DB605A-1s obviously didn't last forever. Speed varied between 370 and 415 mph depending on the engine option. The aircraft were originally Me 109 G-2s sold to the Spaniards by the NAZIS. The HA1112s were intended for anti insurgency work usually armed with 2 20mm cannon and a bunch of rockets (why waste a good airframe, right) but by the time they were in service the Spanish Empire was non existent so they became an answer without a question. I'm sure they made some nice money renting them out to movie makers though.

Service life was 1954-65.

The Me 109 in various re engineered configurations served long after WWII in air forces as diverse as Switzerland and Israel. The HA1112 was the best of the lot when it came to the post war '109.

[dogtag]

The movie Appointment in London was a good one - about a Lancaster Bomber Group.
The firestorm bombing at the ending looked pretty realistic.

[Mark in Ottawa]

The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton Ontario (just west of Toronto) has one of the only two flying Lancasters in the World. Vintage Wings of Canada, located in Gatineau Quebec, just across the river from Ottawa has a flyable Mark IX spitfire and a flyable Mark XII Hurricane.

The Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa has 3 Spitfires, a Hurricane and a Lancaster. I think that all of them are in flyable condition but the museum never actually flies them due to fear of an accident

All of which to say is that there are still a few of these wonderful aircraft around

A few years ago the Lancaster made a low level pass over downtown Ottawa at night during the Canada Day celebrations. The noise and vibrations from 4 Merlins was incredible and just about rattled my brain.