I waited until this one ended up on DirecTV to watch. Did anyone else see this movie? Only the first ten minutes of the movie are actual flying, and the rest is edge of your seat "stop drinking!" yelling from the couch.

 

There are some really good life lessons to be learned though from the ending.

When Cap. Whip was asked by the NTSB investigator, during the hearing, if it was his opinion that the woman flight attendant (whom lost her life saving a child's life on the flight) was the one who drank the open liquor from the galley -- I wasn't sure how he was going to answer... When he took the blame, admitted he was an alcoholic, and bit the bullet, I was really shocked. While alcoholism is nothing to be admired, his courage and brute honesty in the end saved an innocent deceased woman's reputation and honor. I wish there were more people like that in this world. Sometimes being honest isn't easy, and sometimes you will land yourself in a lot of trouble, but imagine how much better we would be with higher accountability.

 

I watched it recently, and I really liked it.

I knew it wouldn't be much action but more story and drama, and I liked how he tried to piece his life back but in the end went for a complete "fsx reinstall" and started from scratch.

 

I especially loved the dialogue in the hospital stairwell with the terminally ill patient.

Great writing.

complete "fsx reinstall"

 

That's a nice analogy to relate to our hobby!

 

I especially loved the dialogue in the hospital stairwell with the terminally ill patient.

 

Yeah, it was interesting to me that not only the dialogue was well written, but the backgrounds and personalities were so different, but in some ways all the same. A heroine addict, an airline captain (alcoholic/smoker); and a cigarette smoking cancer patient on his last leg.

complete "fsx reinstall"

Great writing.

 

That is something to do, about hour life, time to time LOL

 

Just to add some backstage about the flying sequence,

 

 

I think that Denzel Washington did a good job, he change is acting style, with a more lower and relaxed attitude.

 

For me this movie is a picture of the actual America.

I liked it a lot, great movie throughout, great ending, and great acting by Denzel. Yes the flight sequence is only a small part of the movie, but it's one of the best I've seen and extremely realistic. A movie highly recommended!

If only he didn't fly upside down for like a minute! hahahahaha that was fun. Me and my friends call that the "Denzel Simulator". Not even FSX is capable of such maneuver :lol: :lol:

It was a good film, not really for the aviation side of it but it's watchable and enjoyable. It has a few "What the hell are you doing?" moments :-)

It's good movie, but flying scenes are disappointing for me. They took the MD80 failure from Alaska Airlines Flight 261, that crashed in reality(but pilots flied reverted and managed to stabilize in the first phase).

But in this movie, the flying scenes are so wrong, here is review of profesional airline pilot(see page 2 about flying scenes): http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/18/real-pilots-laugh-at-flight.html

 

Again, the movie is ok to me, Denzel is fantastic, but i'd like to see just one movie with no "cartoon flying scenes"

I was going to pass on this because I heard the upside down flying sequence was corny. Much like Top Gun's cockpit to cockpit middle finger scene. Some pilot's were annoyed by the movie stating a maneuver like what was depicted wasn't possible and a pilot that dysfunctional wouldn't be allowed to fly in the real world.

If only he didn't fly upside down for like a minute! hahahahaha that was fun. Me and my friends call that the "Denzel Simulator". Not even FSX is capable of such maneuver :lol: :lol:

 

Funny you say that, because maybe FSX is not capable, but a real MD80 is:

 

 

Pilots managed to fly it upside down for more than a minute, longer than what is depicted in the movie:

 

http://aviation-safe.../cvr_asa261.pdf

 

In the real case the final outcome was tragic and the aircraft was not "landable" with the stabilizer in full down trim. But this is the only major discrepancy. Of course they needed to have a more positive outcome in the movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I liked the attention to realistic details, such as the oil pressure going down when they are at zero/negative g. How many people here know that usually the first effect of zero/negative g on an airliner engine is low oil pressure?

 

The thing I found more unrealistic is the wing tip clipping the steeple as it was butter. I think in reality it would have produced a violent and maybe incontrollable yaw and loss of control.

 

Marco

Did they sustain their altitude while doing so? Because at the movie they fly like that for a minute like a 1000AGL. Flying upside down at a descent rate of 4000fpm is possible, but mantaining altitude in a Jet?

I enjoyed the movie, the actual flying part was kinda a joke ... the entire, "Give it more throttle" to get out of the bad weather was silly ... and you need clearance to exceed 250 kts below 10,000 feet ... think he was at 300 kts @ 9000 ft as I recall. Also, a break in the clouds absolutely doesn't guarantee "calm" weather. You can't just "do whatever you like" because your in bad weather, especially not during climb out after takeoff ... unless you declare an emergency.

 

I would be surprised if a modern commercial jet could not fly upside down for as long as they like -- surely the fuel feeds and oil feeds (engine and hydraulics) are design to operate under any orientation?

 

Also, if the elevator was stuck full down (as they indicated later in the movie) - when they inverted the aircraft why wouldn't that just induce a stall? And why did turning the aircraft back to normal flight not just send the aircraft back nose down into the ground?

 

And was I the only one who thought that his initial overspeed during the storm was most likely the cause of failure to the elevator. And unless they were flying with A LOT of trim (not good for fuel economy) during their cruise altitude I don't see why the elevator would be under much stress at FL310 to suddenly fail like that.

 

Now the human drama part was done well, but probably didn't need to be dragged out so long. Hospital scene in the stairs was good. First scene was great !

Did they sustain their altitude while doing so? Because at the movie they fly like that for a minute like a 1000AGL. Flying upside down at a descent rate of 4000fpm is possible, but mantaining altitude in a Jet?

 

If it can sustain a -1 g maneuver for a minute or so, then it can fly upside down for the same time. My "feeling" is it could be done (barring of course the engine problems it'd have due to fuel/oil starvation after 30 seconds or so as depicted in the movie). Someone should try it in a Level-D simulator and report here :smile:

 

Marco

Away from the discrepancies in accuracy of the flight data, this movie is about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse mixed with responsibility. Full of life lessons but also a gripping and, and certain points, quite funny film.

 

I enjoyed watching it very much when it came out in the UK!