First Ring Daily 1265: Rose-Tinted Monday’s

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• chronocidal

  Premium Member

  27 June, 2022 - 2:03 pm

  <p>So as an avid aircraft nerd, I feel the uncontrollable need to offer some historical insight.</p><p><br></p><p>The setting for the original Top Gun wasn’t all that far-fetched.&nbsp;The movie came out in 1986, which happens to be sandwiched between two actual engagements in the Gulf of Sidra, one in 1981, and one in 1989.&nbsp;Both involved two F-14s being engaged by pairs of Russian-built aircraft, though these fighters were flown by Libyan pilots.&nbsp;These were both essentially territorial staring contests that turned hot.</p><p><br></p><p>Neither engagement was nearly as crowded or massive as the one in the movie, of course, being limited to 2-on-2, and not approaching anything even close to the ranges seen in the movie.</p><p><br></p><p>As for the "hit the brakes" maneuver, that <em>is</em>&nbsp;a fairly standard combat tactic, designed to force a pursuing enemy plane to overshoot you.&nbsp;It’s an energy management game, and being able to bleed off that much speed without falling out of the sky was a rather new thing for aircraft in the 80s, due to how powerful newer jet engines were getting.&nbsp;Like all things in the movie, it’s insanely exaggerated in how close the aircraft are, to keep both planes in the frame.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><p>Those maneuvers are also incredibly risky to perform during a large engagement, specifically because you are bleeding off all of your speed, and turning yourself into a sitting duck for anyone else to shoot at.&nbsp;The way it was used in the movie, like most things, was a kernel of truth cooked into popcorn.</p><p><br></p>

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• wright_is

  Premium Member

  28 June, 2022 - 12:26 am

  <p>Also, being cold war, they couldn’t lay their hands on Russian built jets for the film, so they had to make do with "lesser known" (to the general public) US aircraft, so real aircraft nerds were laughing their pants off, when they were talking about the "Mig 20", but showed Maveric going cockpit to cockpit with a Northrop F5.</p>

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• erichk

  Premium Member

  27 June, 2022 - 7:30 pm

  <p>Trying to think of some examples of bad movies from my childhood that I would still enjoy today. Corvette Summer. V. Race with the Devil (Peter Fonda).</p>

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• wright_is

  Premium Member

  28 June, 2022 - 12:42 am

  <p>From my childhood? Pink Flamingos.</p><p><br></p><p>In general, anything with Adam Sandler, anything with Will Ferrel.</p><p><br></p><p>We actually walked out of the cinema after about 20 minutes of "the other guys" and the same for Sandra Bullock’s "all about Steve". There have been a lot of movies recently on Prime, where we’ve watched them, or started to watch them and gone, "well, that was a complete waste of our time, that we’ll never get back!" One I watched because of TWiT, or rather because it was set in Petaluma, "Lady Driver – Outside Groove". It was pretty bad, not Will Ferrel bad, but almost.</p>

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• wright_is

  Premium Member

  28 June, 2022 - 3:08 am

  <p>Sorry, those are just unwatchable bade movies!</p><p><br></p><p>Bad that I’d still watch today? Krull.</p>

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• erichk

  Premium Member

  28 June, 2022 - 6:51 pm

  <p>Adam Sandler in The Water Boy … pure cinema!</p>

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• wright_is

  Premium Member

  29 June, 2022 - 12:26 am

  <p>Absolutely unwatchable.</p><p><br></p><p>I find a lot of modern (last 20+ years) American comedy is just embarrassing. In both senses. Gone is the high-brow comedy or even slap-stick, all that seems to be left in the mainstream is causing embarrassment. I find myself just feeling embarrassed for the comedian and not finding it at all funny.</p><p><br></p><p>Unfortunately, British comedy seems to be going the same way. I loved Rowan Atkinson, for example, in Glompus van de Hloed’s Tales from the Crypt and later Not the Nine o’Clock News, but Mr. Bean and Johnny English are absolutely appauling – although Mr. Bean seems to be big here in Germany, probably because it is all visual comedy, so it doesn’t lose so much in the "translation".</p>

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• erichk

  Premium Member

  29 June, 2022 - 6:53 pm

  <p>I can relate, but I don’t know how much of that can be attributed to things simply become less funny over time or me getting older.</p>

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• aberlake

  Premium Member

  28 June, 2022 - 4:58 pm

  <p>Finally! I’ve got my RSS feed back for podcast!? I can stop listening to FRD on YouTube and use my Podcast App without CloudFlare killing it???</p>

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