Quote Originally Posted by Zack Baughman View Post
Chick flick or no, it's a great movie with a lot of great aviation going on.
And the "chick" is Holly Hunter, which makes that movie almost perfect...

Quote Originally Posted by Zack Baughman View Post
One that I like that not very many people seem to have seen is "Dark Blue World." It tells the story of Czech pilots flying in the RAF during WWII.
Amen to that!

Consider this my "second" for "The Rocketeer" and "Strategic Air Command" as previously mentioned as well. "Battle of Britain" is one of my all-time favorites, and, of course, "The Great Waldo Pepper", "Wings", "The Dambusters", "Tora! Tora! Tora!" and "Reach for the Sky" are all right up there.

John Wayne as "Spig" Wead in "Wings of Eagles" is fantastic, and I'll always love the flying scenes in "Air America." For my north-of-the-border friend Floatsflyer, I have to mention "For the Moment" (1993), which is not only a "chick flick", it's thoroughly Canadian! Not an especially spectacular movie but a decent look at life in the BCATP during WWII. The same goes for "Captains of the Clouds" (1942), except the words "chick flick" and "Jimmy Cagney" don't really go together...

1942's "Thunder Birds" is very good, and the B-17 scenes shot for "The War Lover" will absolutely blow your mind. The movie that's known as "the French Top Gun", "Le Chavaliers du Ciel", has some of the most amazing aerial cinematography I've ever seen - Mirage IVs and AlphaJets aren't normally what I'm looking for in an aviation film, but this footage is absolutely stunning. Odds are you've seen clips on YouTube without necessarily knowing where they came from.

Others that come to mind are "The Blue Max", 1935's "Ladies Crave Excitement" (this one caused my wife to raise an eyebrow when it was added to the collection) which includes footage of Johnny Miller looping a Pitcairn autogiro, and "The McConnell Story", even though I (spoiler alert!) get sad at the end. "The Hunters" is a fun Korean War-era film with Robert Mitchum at his gruff best, and "Only Angels Have Wings" is also a longtime favorite.

With respect to television, the newly remastered "Steve Canyon" TV-series is an absolute must for anyone with even a passing interest in the USAF during the cold war, and the BBC's miniseries adaptation of "Piece of Cake" gets my highest recommendation. If you've seen a clip on the web of a Spitfire flying under a bridge, that's from "Piece of Cake." I've also been having fun lately with episodes of "Whirly Birds" and "Ripcords." Finally, if, like me, you have a soft spot for bad 80's television, the short-lived "Blue Thunder" TV series is full of bad acting, terrible writing, and great flying.

As far as documentaries go, Paul Glenshaw's "Barnstorming", starring our own Andrew King, is one of my absolute favorites, along with Russ Munson's "Flying Route 66." (Full disclosure: Paul, Andrew and Russ are friends of mine.)

It's all-but-impossible to find (my copy was an Emmy screener I found on eBay), but if you get the chance to watch "Carnauba: a Son's Memoir", you'll be rewarded with some of the most beautiful flying scenes ever filmed. The same can be said for "Winged Migration", though the subjects there are birds, not airplanes, so it may not count. "The Great Circle Air Safari" deserves a mention - great footage of a trip around Australia in vintage biplanes.

Sigh - I could go on and on. In fact, I just did...