Masters Of The Sky

Suppose to be on AppleTV at the end of the month.

this one?

https://www.whattowatch.com/feature...te-cast-trailer-and-all-you-need-to-know

sample quote

It reunites the award-winning team of Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman who also produced Band of Brothers and The Pacific.

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I've been looking forward to this! Based on an excellent book "Masters of the Air" by Donald L. Miller

Have to admit I'm a little worried about how modern Hollywood is going to portray the aerial combat scenes - I assume almost all the "flying" will be computer graphics

While I enjoyed the movie "Midway", I was disappointed in the CG combat scenes - looked more like a video game - but maybe modern audiences just expect that these days

Based on the trailer, it sure ain't no documentary.. very cinematic, every actor looks to have been to the Brad Pitt School of Good Looks, very Hollywood.

What little I've heard, it's going to look like an arcade game, and be goofier than Red Tails.
There's so much more to the aerial campaigns than the 100th BG, yet so little coverage. TBQH I wish we could see more about the B-24 story because they are virtually ignored.

If I can figure out how to watch it - so far, this streaming thing has been a near-nightmare - I still want to see it.
Of course there'll be CGI; there aren't a lot of B-17s left.

As a teen, one of our neighbors flew on the B-24 raids on the Ploesti oil fields.
From what he would tell me, a TV screen would be filled with flak explosions and only occasional views of the bombers.

When I bought this house one of my neighbors was ground crew for the Flying Tigers. He had some interesting stories.

^^^ I bet he did. It's been alleged that they helped run a lot of stuff for Chiang Kai-shek.
Stories abound of a lot of non-sanctioned activity, but they operated in a less-regulated theatre, so to speak.
Smokey Yunick's autobiography tells of a couple aircraft that pilots appropriated for their own use, him included.

Key history items not much discussed:

How to select which enemy targets to bomb?

20/20 Hindsight answer: Let the enemy tell you what is crucial - so bomb what has the most fighters and Flak guns surrounding it.
Bombing ball bearing factories did not work.
Bombing where railroad cross one another did not work.
German plants that turned coal into 3 products: engine liquid fuel, synthetic rubber, and explosives - should have been “top priority targets.”

Bomb during daylight or at night?

20/20 Hindsight answer: At night carpet bomb
using Mosquito aircraft or similar to mark target area boundaries with fire bombs first.

What could have Joe Stalin done to shorten the war and save huge numbers of Soviet soldier deaths.

20/20 Hindsight answer: If Stalin had supplied fuel and allowed Britain and the USA to set up airfields in Russia
so the bombers could bomb going West-East, then landing, refuel, reload bombs, rest crew
- then bomb flying East-West returning to England,
targets would have been destroyed faster.

B-17 crews suffered especially
and the war’s end was prolonged by as much as 2 years
by above mistakes.

I watch a movie titled "Wolf Hound" last night that I had never heard of until yesterday, I saw and bought it for $1.00 at our local Wal Mart dollar video barrel
It says it is based on a true story about a B17 pilot and crew in WW2 that get shot down and find out about the Nazi plans on using a different capture B17 to bomb England with a newly develop "super bomb". They take action to stop that mission
I do remember seeing many comments about American, British and other allies air crews taking their damaged aircraft to land in Spain, Switzerland and other "neutral nations" in comments from some WW2 combat veterans in written story when I was younger, once they landed they were treated as POW but not in prison camps like the Germans had during WW2. They were not allowed to go back to their combat stations to return to the war. I always wonder how many "damaged" aircraft could have been flown back to their home bases instead of taking a shorter detour to a neutral country airports: work:
Lots of simulated aerial combat footage in this movie if you like that

The B-29s damaged while bombing Japan that elected to land in Russia gave quite an advanced aircraft technology gift to Stalin.

But the British Labor government that sold Jet engines to the USSR exceeded even the B-29 affair.

commentary

https://www.military.com/off-duty/t...bout-highly-anticipated-wwii-series.html

sample quote
Eighth Air Force's famed 100th Bombardment Group. The unit was known as the "Bloody Hundredth," for the high number of killed, wounded and missing in action it took during the war. Over the course of 22 months, the 100th lost ​​732 airmen and 923 taken prisoner aboard 177 aircraft shot down on bombing runs.

The historical setting for the series was a dark time for Allied airmen. In January 1943, the Soviet Red Army was still fighting the Nazis near Stalingrad while the British and Americans were deadlocked against the German Army in North Africa. This was when the Eighth Air Force began hitting targets inside Germany. Until the introduction of the P-51 Mustang later that year, the unit's B-17s would have to fly over occupied Europe without fighter escorts, an estimated 40,000 anti-aircraft guns and experienced Luftwaffe fighters waiting for them.

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from a larger review of coming military related movies and show

https://www.military.com/off-duty/m...nd-tv-shows-were-excited-watch-2024.html

review

https://www.arcamax.com/entertainment/entertainmenttoday/s-3079369?fs

Review by Friday Wall Street Journal is favorable,
but says that sound-tract is so “over the top” that it sometimes detracts from the presentation.

Not to change the subject but here’s an interesting vid

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjM_vDelfuDAxUKJUQIHUxjBoQQwqsBegQIDRAG&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Do_Uhx1YInQU&usg=AOvVaw1Sd0woz-rQTe7v3LMSBxUa&opi=89978449

sample quote

The U.S. Eighth Air Force launched its bombing campaign against Nazi Germany, one of the largest, most important and most devastating strategic initiatives in the annals of warfare, on this day in history, Jan. 27, 1943.

"I knew what it meant to look my own fear in the face and do my duty because the lives of my crew and the destiny of my country depended on it," Eighth Air Force B-17 bomber pilot and future Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry wrote in his eponymous 1990 autobiography.

"War tested me. But I had survived. And the experience had given me not only a broader perspective on life, but a confidence in myself I had never known before."

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Well. I watched the 1st episode last night.
My frame of reference is a reverence for my childhood/adolescent elder neighbors and family who fought in WW2, most all in the European Theater.
As a consequence, I've been a bit of a student of that war since then.
To me, the photography and air sequences were excellent, often as stunning as anything I've seen on a screen, though cut short to fit.
(In reality, the pervasive and capricious terror of those runs lasted for hours.)
The production apparently went to great lengths in the areas of accuracy.
Some of the presentation is a bit "Hollywood", and in places the score is a bit overwrought and unnecessary.
I wouldn't yet place it equal to Band Of Brothers, which to me is perhaps the best of the WW2 portrayals, if not among the best.

https://www.historynet.com/b17s-masters-of-the-air/

I bet there will be some DEI factors involved in the show. Players that were not in theaters close to the 100th may show up.

Laminar Flow wing design,
PBY,
and B-24 all deserve more respect and attention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Aircraft

Wagner, William (1976).
Reuben Fleet and The Story of Consolidated Aircraft.
Aero Publishers, Inc.
ISBN 0-8168-7950-8.

B-24 used the Davis Wing design

we are saying the same thing:

quote

Only later was the reason for the Davis wing's performance properly understood. Largely through accident, the shape maintained laminar flow further back from its leading edge, to about 20 or 30% of chord compared to the 5 to 20% managed by most airfoil sections of the era. Although later designs greatly improved on this, with some maintaining laminar flow to upwards of 60% of chord, the Davis wing represented a great improvement at the time.

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an age of great inventors

granted, but the Davis is unique compared to other laminar flow designs - it was dropped after WW2, too much high-speed drag

Well, this is weird:
Signed up for Apple streaming, watched the 1st 3 episodes, but suddenly can't watch anything on Apple.
Troubleshooting process says there's nothing wrong, still subscribed, but can't play.

So, adios Apple - I'm not gonna be driven nuts.
Anyone else have this problem ?

Piper Comanche had laminar flow wings, I'm not sure about some of their other models having that wing design or not.
I bought my PA24-250 in 1991 and flew it around 900 hours, it was a great cross country airplane (185+ MPH average cruise speed ) not so good for the short $100.00 hamburger hops.
Long wings and little drag made it a challenge for me to learn how to land it well after learning to fly in high wing low HP trainers