We continue our vehicles in sci-fi arc with a discussion of aircraft — how they differ from spacecraft and what makes them special. Audra teases out the origins of Chuck’s Halo Scorpion fetish. And we run down the week in geek. If you’re in San Diego for Comic Con, we’d love to meet you. Check out our forum for Friday night meetup information. Hope to see you there!
Gotta go with Chuck on this one, “Chasing Amy” is a very quotable flick.
“Lando Calrissian is a positive role-model in the realm of science-fiction/fantasy.” – Holden McNeil
Ok so if I time this right I can listen to the whole on the car trip down to the meet up this evening.
Anime has a tradition of awesome aircraft, a few examples-
from Yukikaze:
Macross:
Last Exile (more SteamPunkish in nature):
And most of Miyazaki’s early works had marvelous flying sequences and fascinating aircraft in them, here is one such iconic craft:
Harrison Ford DOES fly a helicopter.
In fact, he flies a rescue helicopter in Montana.
True story.
He’s also a private pilot of fixed wing, and was head of the Young Eagles program (something I’m part of too, I’ve given 130 kids their first airplane rides).
Incidentally, he learned to fly at the same airport I did. 
This clip from Airwolf pretty much says it all (*Note the impressive costume change).
I first saw this in syndication as a kid. My 13 year old self thought it was awesome (excluding the unmentionalbe extra low budget fourth season)!
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the helicopter used in Airwolf…
[i]The Airwolf helicopter
Main article: Airwolf (helicopter)
The flying Airwolf helicopter was actually a Bell 222, serial number 47085, sometimes unofficially called a Bell 222A.[2] During filming of the series, the helicopter was owned by Jetcopters, Inc. of Van Nuys, California.[3] The helicopter was eventually sold after the show ended and became an ambulance helicopter in Germany, where it crashed in a thunderstorm and was destroyed on June 6, 1992, killing all three crew members.[4]
The concept behind Airwolf was a supersonic and armed helicopter that could blend in by appearing to be civilian and non-military in origin — “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Airwolf’s insignia patch, as designed by artist Andrew Probert and, as worn by the flight crew members, was a snarling wolf’s head with bat wings that appeared to be wearing a sheepskin, complete with the head of the lamb over the wolf’s forehead; a direct play on the saying.
At the close of filming, Jetcopters used the Santini Air helicopter to fly sightseeing tours of Los Angeles.[citation needed][/i]
Interesting trivia I picked up a few months ago while watching Airwolf with my kids (hey, I’ve got a responsibility to make sure they’re properly educated), the actual helicopter from Airwolf (the Bell 222) was sold after the series was closed out. It became an air-ambulance, and later crashed in a storm in Europe killing all aboard. A sad ending, and it’s interesting to watch these clips knowing the outcome of the aircraft.
Still listening to the cast but one thing I’ve heard about the creative fields is this mantra
‘Do Awesome work and be awesome to work with’
Seems with that attitude you’ll go far and get hired/recommended.
My first thought when it comes to Chuck getting in the scorpion on a multiplayer map
(In an Edward Furlong T2 voice) - Chuck, Scorpion. He’s gonna blow them all away!
I love aircraft, and my personal fave for sexiest airplane that ever flew is the plane that saved Britian, The Supermarine Spitfire;
2nd? The plane on which all modern jet fighters descend from, the Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalb, a plane that could nearly make Mach I and if Hitler had actually greenlit it’s production as a fighter in 1942 would have probably changed the course of WWII in Europe. Thankfully he was an idiot.
Finally one of my absolute faves is the first true fighter ever built and brought into service, the Fokker E.1 with it’s timing system that allowed you to shoot safely through the propeller without hitting it. It created the great “Fokker Scourge” of WWI and gave the German air superiority through most of 1915.
MY favorite aircraft, of course… is MY PLANE!
Lots of pics from the day I bought it:
https://picasaweb.google.com/100975367353401799197/BuyingMyNewPlane
That’s a 180, right? I used to rent one at the little place where I learned to fly. (Check out F14 on the DFW sectional.) Later I rented Warriors out of Addison (ADS), and a friend had an Arrow. I did my private in a Tomahawk.
They’re not as utilitarian as Cessnas, but I always liked em more. They’re much prettier, and faster, too. The 180 is far and away the most capable of the bunch. Great plane.
It’s actually a Warrior, heh, but yes, the 180 is also a fine aircraft. From this plane, I’ve flown into places like Death Valley (-211 on the altimeter), landed at big international airports, flown to some air shows, and done lots and lots and lots of zero-G parabolas with my kids.
Also, I’ve given about 130 kids their first plane rides in it as part of the Young Eagles program, and that’s super fun.
I bombed a town once. Hey, this is even on-topic for the forum because it was Battlestar Galactica DVDs. My friend (who lived an hour+ drive away) stood in a football field as I flew over and dropped them out in a ziploc bag with two grocery plastic bags zip-tied to it as parachutes. They floated down and landed right on the pitchers mound.
This was great, except of course as I mentioned, he was in a football field, and the baseball diamond was two blocks away. Still, mission super-successful.
I’d go on and on about my plane (The Aluminum Falcon), but I won’t bore y’all. Just wanted to show MY favorite plane! 
dream plane … I would have to go with this.
“It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.” … Ferris
I dunno if I agree with the assessment of stars by the cast. It’s kinda refreshing for a guy like Shia to say what all the fans are actually saying.
Like what he said about Indy 4 -
I think the audience is pretty intelligent. I think they know when you’ve made (slop). And I think if you don’t acknowledge it, then why do they trust you the next time you’re promoting a movie…We [Harrison Ford and LaBeouf] had major discussions. He wasn’t happy with it either. Look, the movie could have been updated. There was a reason it wasn’t universally accepted….We need to be able to satiate the appetite. I think we just misinterpreted what we were trying to satiate.
…
You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven [Spielberg, who directed]. But the actor’s job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn’t do it. So that’s my fault. Simple.
and Transformers 2
“We got lost. We tried to get bigger. It’s what happens to sequels. It’s like, how do you top the first one? You’ve got to go bigger. Mike went so big that it became too big, and I think you lost the anchor of the movie. You lost a bit of the relationships. Unless you have those relationships, then the movie doesn’t matter. Then it’s just a bunch of robots fighting each other.”
As for my favorite aircraft? Gotta be the Turbokat fictional, A-10 in real life.
Vtol F-14 with 3 engines and a crazy assortment of missiles ala Green Arrow? Hell yeah
http://swatkats.info/turbokat
My Favorite Real Aircraft:
The Chance-Vaught F4U Corsair. I love the gull wings, the way the gear folded up and the fact that it kicked ass in the Pacific in WWII.
The awesome Consolidated PBY Catalina. This sucker has an outstanding range, looks like a fortress, and can land in water or on a runway. In WWII she was used as reconnaissance and for search and rescue. I’d love to take this sucker up to Alaska with a boat in the hold and fish some backwaters. Today PBY’s are used to fight forest fires.
I fell in love with this aircraft well before The Memphis Belle was ever conceptualized as a movie. The American heroes that flew B-17s in the Pacific and in Europe during the early days on WWII were braves souls that never knew they would be coming back due to enemy AAA or fighters. Many many distressed B-17s brought back their crews without a tail, or with only one working engine or with wings literally clipped off in half. The statistics are staggering if you ever take a look at them about how many men fought and were sacrificed so the Allied powers could win the land war. I respect the aircraft and crews for that. But most of all I love how the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress looks. Sure the bombers America produced near the end of the war seemed like they could actually carry a B-17 in their bomb bays (B-24, B-29, B-36, etc), but no other bomber produced has had the loving respect of their crews.
Who doesn’t like the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird? Still the fastest pure aircraft ever produced, the Blackbird just looks badass. It has the distinction of being the first aircraft ever produced with stealth in mind and it was designed by the famous Lockheed Skunk Works. It also was originally produced for the CIA as the A-12 but eventually handed over to the Air Force for operation. It doesn’t turn worth crap and it is the ultimate gas hog, but she was America’s sweetheart of aircraft. And don’t forget the awesome performance in Transformers 2 as Jetfire.
Mostly forgotten by the next generation of aircraft enthusiasts is the North American XB-70 Valkyrie. Only two were ever produced. One crashed during flight testing due to a mid-air aircraft collision with a F-104 killing all involved. The other remains safely tucked in the National Museum Of The United States Air Force. She was too expensive to operate in 1966 and the Air Force opted for long range ICBMs instead. Eventually the B-1 and the B-2 took the place that the B-70 was supposed to fill. Although the B-1 was a supersonic bomber, both aircraft used stealth instead of speed to defeat the Soviet Integrated Air Defense System. I like the Valkyrie because she has a cool name, looked incredibly menacing and has SPEEEEEEED.
My final favorite aircraft I’ll picture in this post is the McDonald Douglass F-15E Strike Eagle. This incredible machine remains to this day the premier air-to-air/air-to-ground combo fighter. She can carry a staggering amount of air-to-air and air-to-ground ordnance and has an amazing top speed. If I could purchase any of these aircraft this would be the one. The Strike Eagle is a dream to fly, too.
The last aircraft that I will list in my favorites is the very aircraft pictured in my avatar on this forum. It is the Boeing “Bird Of Prey” and she is named after the Klingon Bird Of Prey for a variety of reasons - the primary reason is that she looks like a BOP.
I could talk hours about aircraft so I’ll just stop typing now to spare anyone not interested.
~Shooter Out
THAT THING LOOKS SWEEEEEEEETTTTTT!!!
Hearing Chuck’s love for the Scorpion is vaguely surreal during my Red vs. Blue marathon…
I’m a huge fan of Kevin Smith and still listen to his podcasts and now of course his online radio offerings and yes I bought Zack & Miri plus Cop Out on Blu purely to get hold of his commentaries and in the case of the latter the extended presentation. His standup/QA are comedy gold but not for everyone and it’s going to be interesting to see how Red State performs beyond the tour screenings.
As for the aircraft well yeah there is nothing as gorgeous as the SR-71 in terms of purity of flight but I’ll always love the good old DC3 and the A-10 Thunderbolt which got me an A on media studies presentation back in college:)