Flyable WWI Aircraft

If a Hollywood producer wanted to make a film about WWI Aviation, what sort of aircraft replicas that are currently in flyable condition, or close enough to become flyable with a little $$$ exist in the world today? If you have numbers for individual types and where they can be found that would be great information.

Though I'm still writing my story, I'm trying to convince a guy I know in the film industry that such a film is even feasible. He worries that no one would even be interested because of the enormous cost involved in having to produce vast numbers of replicas (as if Hollywood was ever tight budgeted). But I know there are real planes still out there and probably a good handful of stunt pilots who'd jump at the chance to fly them for a film.

Ironically, as I told my film industry friend, you'd only need to build but a few (and apparently they could cost as little as $50,000 - pennies to a well financed film project) because of the benefit of today's fantastic visual effects. If any of you remember the film 'Independence Day' (I'm trying to forget), you'll recall the flight sequence in which seemingly hundreds of Marine and Naval F-18's, Harriers, etc flew in a gigantic armada towards the Alien Craft. It was a very realistic looking scene and my uderstanding was that almost none of those planes were real. Most, if not all, were produced with computer models. That's the good news for prospects in WWI aviation filmmaking. Additionally, scenes encompassing large scale flights of aircraft could be created using 1/4 scale flybale models, shot at a distance to obscure visual scale-interpretation. Man, I'm telling you it'd work Mark!! Just hear me out and wait till I'm done writing the book!!!

C'mon people, give me some ideas and support! I'm NOT unrealistic am I?

Chris

[stephen]

I've long thought the same thing. A well done WWI aviation movie could be a smash hit! I do think that it should be a factual film... it would be impossible to write a fictional story that would top the real life adventures of MvR or Frank Luke. But I'd take either and be glad. At 50k a pop, you could have 20 planes for a million bucks... about 1/20th of what it will cost you to have Liam Neeson star as the Red Baron or Tom Cruise to get a haircut to look like Luke. Hey, that's pretty good casting isn't it? While I'm at it, let's throw in Sandra Bullock as Katie Otersdorf (ooh la la!), Nicolas Cage as Lothar von Richthofen and Val Kilmer as Joe Wehner (maybe we could have a spelling contest?). I see another thread here.

Great idea, Im sure you wont get anything but encouragement from people at this site. But peolpe who make movies are more concerned about what happened last week versus what happened eighty years ago. A likely response of theirs would be 'How many people even the know WWI occurred?

I bet you could almost do the whole film just using computer simulated planes. Talk to pixar about it. They're the kings of computer animation. I'm sure nobody would want an original that is still in flying condition to actually fly in case of a crash (what a loss). There are tons of replicas out there but alot of them are 7/8 scale. Will somebody tell me why somebody would bother to build a replica at 7/8 scale and not have the where with all to construct the other 8th? Why not just go ahead and make a full scale replica? Are they just really small people and ashamed of the fact so they want to look a little bigger? I don't understand it.

I agree , rather than replica's , do it all by simulation , there is a website that a 3dmax enthusiest modelled a spad and bristol fighter , the great advantage of modelling is , once u have one bristol fighter etc , u have a million bristol fighters.

urls are :

http://pease1.sr.unh.edu/Images/Merino/

http://pease1.sr.unh.edu/Images/Thompson/

good luck with your project and keep us up to date on it , the world needs a modern day partner to the excellent blue max.

cam

[mike_baram]

Great idea, but I have doubts about casting actors in their late 30s, early 40s as pilots who were in their early 20s....I'm a stickler for credibility in historical movies.
But, yeah....use computer graphics for the battle scenes, and then incorporate those scenes into RBIII....(I just gotta get a better computer).

In mephis Belle there were 8 flyable B-17s out of what did we see a hundred or more? all the others were 12 foot and 6 foot models just a few replicas would be needed. The actors would mostly need to be unknowns to keep the budget down a bit also have them be made up characters for the most part it Hollywood made a WWI movie I bet more than half of us would be on here the next day complaining abought how unrealistic and they made a mistake here or there (Unless Steven "Saveing Pvt Ryan" Speilberg directed it)

Chris,

Was the biplane crash in "The English Patient" any inspiration to you? It was for me...

RK

[Boom]

7/8 scale replicas are popular because of the availabilirty of engines. Look at engineering rules of size, drag, etc and you'll see you need a lot more poop for that extra eighth.
cheers, Boom

All this seems like bloody good idea to me. Did anybody see young Indiana Jones and the Attack Of The Hawkmen? What they achieved in that with a few scale models, some grond only replicas and some nifty glass shots was a wonder to behold. And all on a TV budget..The prospect of such a production with all the currently available computer tec has me foaming from every orrofice..Airplanes are just made for computer simulation.

Peter Leonard

"What the....?"
MvR