James Bond's Spectre.
Hollywood vs. reality
Why should I trust you?
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.
Today I'm in Seattle Washington
and this is the view from my hotel room.
I love James Bond movies since I was a kid
and this is no exception.
This film's from 2015 and it's starring Daniel Craig.
If you haven't seen the full movie, I'll put a link to it in the description below.
Now I don't think any James Bond movies needs an introduction.
So let's get into it!
The aircraft of this film is a BN2 Islander.
And of course I know that because as a 747 pilot,
you're required to know every type of aircraft that's ever been made.
Or maybe I googled it.
You may have noticed the OE on the tail?
And that means that the plane is registered in Austria
which is actually where the film takes place.
So that's a really nice detail that they got correct in this.
There are two things that are very Hollywood in this first scene.
The first is that Bond even though he's flying in mountainous terrain,
is giving his ocean eyes to the bad guys.
Now even your most reckless pilot would be looking forward
more than once
while they're flying around in the mountains.
The second thing that's very Hollywood is that
when the bad guy starts shooting at James Bond
instead of pulling the aircraft up and going above or away from them,
he turns towards the mountains.
Now I don't know what is on the left side of him but
that aircraft is never going to be able to climb at that speed
above those mountains.
So he's still in line of sight of the bad guys shooting him.
He could have easily turned to the left or gone over them
or pulled the plane up and climbed
but instead he turned towards the mountains
and that doesn't really make any sense.
Okay let's get back to Spectre.
This scene is basically all Hollywood.
There's nothing in here that seems very factual to me.
First he's descending down a hill and then
he accelerates the aircraft by pushing the throttle forward
and then pushing the nose of the aircraft down.
Now it is very difficult on these aircraft
to add power and then also push the nose down.
It's definitely possible but it's not very easy to do.
As you add power on any plane it wants to go up
so you really have to put a lot of force down to push it down.
And there's really no major advantage except
you're getting to the bad guys quicker.
That's basically it.
Next you have the wheel of one of the aircraft hitting the car.
If the wheel of an aircraft of that size were
to hit a car going the opposite direction,
the plane would spin into the trees or spin out of control.
But in this case the car loses control and shoots off into a fuel tank?
I've never flown this plane before but I've flown enough planes to know that
this type of plane doesn't have the performance
to climb vertically in the mountains of Austria.
Now even if it did have that type of ability,
it would make a lot more sense for James to actually turn to the right,
he would create trees between him and the bad guys
but instead he just pulls up vertically
which I agree, makes for a way cooler shot
but the bad guys could still shoot up and get him.
If he went to the right and over the trees,
they wouldn't be able to shoot through the trees to get him so
that to me doesn't make any sense either.
But I will agree that it definitely looks a lot cooler him pulling up
and climbing away vertically like that
and James has a lot more swag than me.
All right let's get back to the movie.
Okay let's start with the wings ripping off first.
The wings of the aircraft usually hold all the fuel.
So if the wings of the aircraft were to rip off in this scenario
you would have fuel coming out.
There would also be cables that are
connected to the outside of the wings which
allow the plane to turn left and right.
Those cables would also be dangling out there.
So there's no fuel and no cable so
that doesn't make any sense to me.
It kind of reminds me of when I did that Hollywood vs. reality on that Batman movie
and they did the same thing.
The wings came off there was no cables and no fuel.
Another Hollywood thing about this scene is just like when they hit the car,
he hits a pile of wood.
That would spin the aircraft into the trees.
He doesn't have a lot of room on each side obviously
but if the plane were to have the landing gear hit the pile of wood,
the plane would spin and go into a tree.
So that doesn't make any sense.
And finally just like in the Hollywood
versus reality that I did on Air Force One,
no matter what face that you make as a pilot,
it is not going to improve your flying abilities.
Ask me how I know.
Back to the movie.
This scene has more bad piloting than really anything.
He didn't need to explode the engine on the right.
He could have just pulled the engine on the left back,
put the one on the right full forward
and then used rudder to turn the aircraft.
Bond also took forever to turn the plane.
As soon as those cars turned to the left,
he should have used the rudder and actually
started turning the aircraft in that direction.
The two ways that we actually turned the planes on the ground
is using our feet.
And one is when the plane is usually going slow,
those pedals that you saw him stepping on
on the ground when we're going slow,
that turns the tire and the front of the plane to go left and right.
And when as you're going faster that big
thing in the back which is called the rudder
is going to move left or right and that is
going to have enough wind that's hitting it
to make the plane move left or right.
So that part is accurate.
But he waited very long to hit that rudder.
For those of you who don't fly or don't quite understand what I mean by this,
I'm sure you've put your hand out the window
of a car when you're driving down the road.
And if you put your hand out the window and the car's going fast enough
your hands going to want to shoot up or down.
But if you put your hand out the window of your car in you're parked,
your hands not gonna do anything.
It's the exact same thing with a rudder.
If there's enough wind that's coming over that rudder
and you push it left or right it's gonna want to change the direction of the plane.
It's the exact same concept.
Now the most Hollywood thing about this scene is actually
how quickly he turns the plane.
And the plane doesn't tip over.
I don't know where the center of gravity is on this aircraft
but I can assure you that if you were to turn a plane that fast
without having any gear or anything underneath it,
it is definitely going to roll over.
I have never tried it but that just makes sense to me.
Okay back to the movie.
Now Bond has lost his gear.
He's not using that.
He lost his tail when he jumped off the hill.
So I'm not sure how he's steering the plane.
He can use differential power
but it doesn't seem that he's doing that.
And that's where you used one engine to actually turn the plane left or right.
You're giving more power on one side or the other
and make the plane turn.
But doesn't look like he's doing that.
Now this is not an aviation thing per se
but if I was driving the cars
and I saw Bond shooting his plane out of the barn,
I would have just hit the brakes.
I'm gonna hit the brakes so he'll fly right by.
And I'm not really sure how Bond's plane still has gas in it
like I said the wings are what hold most of the fuel.
And I'm not sure where they think the gas tank is on this plane but
it is definitely in the wings.
So I'm not really sure how James' engines are still working
and I'm also not sure why he hits a car, then there's an explosion.
That doesn't really make any sense.
He hit the car already once,
there was no explosion.
He's ripped his wings off there is no explosion.
But now when he hits the car from the side there's a massive explosion so
that didn't really make any sense to me.
Okay back to the final scene of Spectre.
Don't touch me!
These Hollywood movies are always showing the pilots wearing the shoulder harnesses
and like I always talk about,
my shoulder harnesses come off by the first thousand feet always
and most every pilot I know does the exact same thing.
But in this scene James isn't even wearing any seat belt at all.
And for those of you who are pilots out there,
the reaction from the co-star here with James Bond is
probably what you're going to get in the scenario
that you were to crash a plane and then get them out of their seat.
That's probably the reaction you're gonna get.
So rule number one,
don't crash your plane.
Don't touch me!
Now I'm not really sure why she's upset with James here
and he seems a bit confused as well.
If you want to see me confused by some of the mean comments
people have left me on YouTube,
I'll put a link to that video right here.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Until then,
keep the blue side up!