Argo Hollywood versus reality
coming up
hey 74 crew welcome back if you don't know me my name is Kelsey I'm a 747 pilot
my channel 74 gear is all about aviation Argo was a movie I really enjoyed watching actually
when it first came out I like watching those historical movies that you know are based on
reality and I actually watched it well before I ever started youtube so I really liked this
movie and I thought it made sense to do it if you haven't seen the movie since it's based on a true
story I don't really want to ruin the movie for you but I guess this is kind of a spoiler alert
these guys are running away from the government police that are chasing them and I'm not going to
tell you everything that's going on but they've gotten onto a plane which is a 747 and we're
about to break down the scenes from that movie in this Hollywood versus reality let's get into it
Swissair 363 clearance for taxi
Swissair 363 you are number two for
departure
Swissair 363 you are cleared for takeoff
so it's a 363 cleared for takeoff
all right this is kind of nitpicking but there's a few minor things here i think that are worth
mentioning this wave off that they do here that's a real thing that happens in real life sometimes
it's on the captain's side sometimes on the first officer's side but usually what they're doing
is they're showing you that they have all the equipment that they use to push us back they're
showing you that they have everything and that you're cleared a taxiway so that is true however
they after they do that they usually don't run away i've never seen them run even when
the weather is terrible i would be running but i've never seen them run two our radios are not
walkie-talkie radios so they don't make this noise before every time we make a transmission
so those are just two things that caught my attention they're kind of nitpicky but
i thought i would mention them the next thing here is something that they're doing which is
poor radio phraseology now it may have been something that was going on during this time
but you wouldn't do what they're showing now which is clearing them for takeoff and not
saying specifically what runway they're taking off from swissair 363 you are cleared for takeoff
so it's a 363 clear for takeoff as it is now and may not have been in this time frame but now
when you are cleared for takeoff you were cleared for takeoff of a certain runway and that's for
safety reasons there's been accidents where planes have gone off the end of the runway because they
thought they were cleared for takeoff they were on the wrong runway and they went out into the
runway because the runway was very short so you get cleared for takeoff of a specific runway
so they're not giving them clear for takeoff off a runway and they're not reading back off a specific
runway so you could have a confusion especially if the weather was bad or is very cloudy
you might think you're on one or they might think you're on one and you're on a different one
so this is something that is true now you would never ever get clear for takeoff from
a runway you would get given you're clear to take off runway three four left for example
so this is something that just poor radio phaseology and it may be a hollywood thing
and it may be a time period thing i'm not going to go back and research and ask guys who are
flying because these guys that were captains doing international flights to this place
that long ago they may not even remember but by far the most hollywood scene so far in this movie
is this scene right here they're coming up on the back side of the engine now this is a jet engine
it moves itself forward by the jets actually pushing the airplane forward so of all the
places to quickly drive up onto an aircraft this would basically be the absolute worst place to go
if you moved your car another 20 feet to the right you wouldn't have any jet blast coming at
you now i've seen videos of people walking behind a plane where the engines are idling and it throws
them so if you're trying to race up quickly you're there's no way you're going to race up to a plane
when it is propelling itself forward by pushing the air backwards and you're driving up behind
that air it's never going to work they could have driven up in a lot of different places they could
have driven up through the middle of the landing gear there's plenty of space there they could have
driven up through there shot out the tires and done a bunch of other things so of all the places
that is definitely the most hollywood thing of the scene so far all right let's get back to argo
so
uh
ladies and gentlemen, it is our pleasure to announce that alcoholic beverages are now
available as we have cleared uranium I don't know why but as soon as they said that they
could start drinking and those people started hugging I started thinking about it was a flight
crew that was so excited they could finally drink on this deadhead ladies and gentlemen it is our
pleasure to announce that alcoholic beverages are now available as we have cleared uranium
and obviously that's not what they're hugging about they're hugging about they're out of the air
space and and now that i say that reminds me of a cockpit confessionals for a later story now i've
flown out of the middle east as a passenger just like what they're doing here that was a dry area
meaning that there was no alcohol served in that country but i don't remember this announcement i
asked a friend of mine and a couple other pilots that i know that have flown out commercially from
the middle east and i said do you ever remember making this announcement and they said no so i'm
not saying it doesn't happen i'm just saying that i don't remember ever happening to me or something
that they're doing right now there's a few things that hollywood loves when it comes to aviation
wings that don't have fuel or cables in them they love dumping fuel in the air and they love engines
that are continually spooling up for an unlimited amount of time throughout the scene in this scene
these engines are spooling up for like 30 to 45 seconds and that's not how it really works in real
life you push them up and then in our case there's an auto throttle so it kicks them up it takes a
few seconds for them to spool up but it definitely doesn't take this long these engines are winding
up the entire time as they're taking off that's not how it works something else that caught my eye
is it looks like they were shooting this movie and doing it from a parking area not an actual runway
notice these lines right here and these boxes those are actually used to indicate a parking spot
so it will say spot 93 and that allows us as we're coming in to be able to see that we're parking in
the right spot because obviously if you turn into the wrong parking spot it's a little bit hard to
go backwards on these planes so that's not really a big deal but it's just something that caught my
eye it doesn't look like they're on an actual runway here however the most hollywood thing
from this scene is actually the speed at which everything is happening this is a performance slip
from a 747 these are the numbers that we use for takeoff now this number right here is the number
which we pull back on the yoke to start flying up in the air now granted this is a 400 and they're
not flying a 400 in this movie but it gives you kind of an idea of the weights for the planes to
take off and the speed that we're going at there are three different speeds on here but this is
the one right here which really matters because that's the one that they're actually rotating off
the ground on and you'll see in this scene here the cop cars are actually up next to them so that
means they were able to catch up and drive behind the jet blast engine and then accelerate all the
way to get in front of them and then be there with them when they took off there's not a lot of cop
cars especially at this time that could go that fast so that is 100 hollywood now i reference some
of the crazy things that flight crews do while we're on our layovers if you haven't seen the
cockpit confessional series you're going to want to watch this video right here and if you want to
see some actual aviation scenes where i explain actual crashes or things that are happening i'll
put a link to that video up here i look forward to hearing from you until then keep the blue side up