Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 11:58 am
Have been watching "Midway" the movie and the documentary tonight. No idea why the History cable channel chose to play both films over and over. Took a VCR tape of both--slightly imperfect. Hope to get some sounds from them.
Sorry, no clear sight of B-17 props. My instinct says the props turn INWARD on each side--less torque effect if engines go down on one side--but I have no support for that. Maybe a B-17 will show up at the air show end of May.
Interesting color observations (remembering that old color film often tends toward bluish):
---dark blue Navy Buffaloes and f4f's.
---Other Navy and Marine aircraft are a kind of light gray to faint blue-gray.
---B-17's seem to have a slightly darker and duller brown than "our" plane. Not all have apparent camouflage, though the old WWII shots are fuzzy.
---Japanese bombers are a fairly light brown. Some are camo shade with a touch of green, but not heavy or deep green.
--SBD's used as scouts as well as PB-Ys.
--PB-Y's have retractable floats for water landings (which I knew).
--Zeroes and some other Jap aircraft have a definite silver-gray skin with metallic highlights. Only saw one glimpse of white on aircraft bottom.
--Some of the flights shown are quite large, 15 or more aircraft. Have no proof this is authentic, though the film mentiions a U.S. torpedo bomber attack of 35 planes (or therabouts).
Cheers, --W
Sorry, no clear sight of B-17 props. My instinct says the props turn INWARD on each side--less torque effect if engines go down on one side--but I have no support for that. Maybe a B-17 will show up at the air show end of May.
Interesting color observations (remembering that old color film often tends toward bluish):
---dark blue Navy Buffaloes and f4f's.
---Other Navy and Marine aircraft are a kind of light gray to faint blue-gray.
---B-17's seem to have a slightly darker and duller brown than "our" plane. Not all have apparent camouflage, though the old WWII shots are fuzzy.
---Japanese bombers are a fairly light brown. Some are camo shade with a touch of green, but not heavy or deep green.
--SBD's used as scouts as well as PB-Ys.
--PB-Y's have retractable floats for water landings (which I knew).
--Zeroes and some other Jap aircraft have a definite silver-gray skin with metallic highlights. Only saw one glimpse of white on aircraft bottom.
--Some of the flights shown are quite large, 15 or more aircraft. Have no proof this is authentic, though the film mentiions a U.S. torpedo bomber attack of 35 planes (or therabouts).
Cheers, --W