According to the interview/article out in today's WSJ, comments on the 22 real planes used in the movie...........
"......a 1909 Bleriot owned by the Shuttleworth Collection in England. 3 French Nieuport 17's, like those flown by the American squadron, came from private museums, and 4 replicas were built for the movie."
On making the movie believable....
"For the movie "Flyboys", Mr. Bill, an avid aerobatic pilot himself, pressed for making the flying sequences believable to real aviators - a hurdle that few aviation movies have cleared. "So many so-called "flying movies" are so bad that pilots just roll their eyes and wait for it to be over," he said. By using a new type of digital camera, filmmakers captured much longer action sequences than is possible with standard film cameras, so they were able to string together alot of real flying.
...........................
The filmmakers reserved computer animation for the most harrowing scenes, such as those that required airplanes to come within inches of colliding during head-on gun battles. To make the scenes as believable as possible, Mr. Bill outfitted one of the WWI planes with a device that measured flight data, and then filmed the plane as it twisted and rolled through violent combat maneuvers. The data was fed into the animators' computers so that "even the simulated stuff has to follow the laws of aerodynamics as much as possible," he said."
The film was debuted at Oshkosh, and recieved a standing ovation from the crowd at the air show.
The standout quote. "I will feel I have really done my job if I can make just one person who comes to this movie feel airsick."
