Aviation Week Two-Pack (2001)
Ultimate Dogfighting and Superior Airpower
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVDs:

Distributed by: Goldhil Home Media

Features:

• Ultimate Dogfighting:
  
  • Six Basic Air Combat Maneuvers
    
  • Computer Animated Great Dogfights
    
  • The Future of Dogfighting
    
  • What Makes a Winning Ace?
    
  • In the Cockpit of the F-16
    
• Superior Airpower:
  
  • What Makes a Great Fighter
    
  • The Best Fighter of All Time
    
  • What Makes a Great Bomber
    
  • The Best Bomber of All Time
    
  • What Makes a Great Attack Aircraft
    
  • The Best Attack Aircraft of All Time
    

My Advice: Borrow it.

Ever since the Wright Brothers took their fateful flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, man has sought to find every possible usage for this gift of being able to leave the earth behind...even if only for a little while. In the years following, man has also turned these machines into weapons of war. From the early days of WWI to the present, man has continued to challenge not only the technologies available for air warfare, but he has also continued to challenge the limits of man himself.

Well, if it only sounded that glorious on the film...and I'm even allowing for the cheese factor that I consciously inserted into that paragraph. Don't get me wrong, starting out with Ultimate Dogfighting, it is a wealth of information, it's just presented badly. It begins with the early days of aviation warfare and takes us to the present day focusing on the major wars and conflicts that happened along the way. The video clips that they have found of dogfights is outstanding, but that's where the list of good points about this video trickle off. The main problems with this documentary are the writing and the narrator's interpretation thereof. The narrator seems to be yelling every line...and every line seems to be its own paragraph. It's difficult to tell if the latter is the writer's fault or the narrator's. The video focuses mostly on the men of the dogfight, but it seems to be glossing over the surface and never really digging deep into this potential for information. Instead, they seem to be trying to fill the time talking about the airplanes and not enough time on the actual dogfights and how they have evolved over the years.

The bonus footage is where the really good stuff is. The first one is Six Major Maneuvers and man, is this cool. What you get is a split screen presentation of the explanation of the maneuver--which is provided by a retired naval pilot--and a shot of aircraft going through them at the same time. I have no clue how they could have presented this material better--it's perfect.

The Future of Dogfighting focuses on the new F-22 Stealth fighter that we currently have deployed in harm's way. Mostly it's just a smattering of what little bit of specs are declassified and some amazing shots of the machine in flight; pretty cool, but not very much to it. The Computer Animated Great Dogfights could have and should have been much better than they were. What's good about them is the fact that the men who actually flew them are narrating, but this feature's crippled by the fact the computer graphics are just flat boring. There are two presented here: one from WWII and one from Korea. Each one is introduced by a little bit of the history of air combat in the war and then they move on to the meat of the clip, which makes it really nice to get into it--but the graphics make for a huge let down.

The section called What Makes a Fighting Ace? is nothing more than interviews with the pilots themselves, which in my opinion, is what the main program should have been about in the first place. Another really cool feature is the one that takes you inside the cockpit of the F-16. Have you ever wondered what a pilot's HUD (Head's Up Display) is actually telling him while he's in flight? Well, this one show's you exactly what it is and shows you how the pilot uses it while flying about.

As for Superior Airpower, what this video loses in production value, it makes up for in quality of content. This video focuses most of its attention on three topics: the aircraft carrier, the stealth aircraft, and the use of air warfare during Operation Desert Storm. Each of the these topics is covered quite well, providing you with what appears to be as much information as the State Department would allow them to include. The writing is choice also and the narration has a more conversational tone to it.

The two special features cover three different types of aircraft: you have the What Makes a Great Fighter/Bomber/Attack Aircraft? series and the Greatest Fighter/Bomber/Attack Aircraft of All Time series. The What Makes... series covers all the specs that the experts use when trying to determine how to build a certain type of aircraft (i.e., maneuverability, ceiling, range, etc.). It is filled with interviews of pilots from several different eras talking about the aircraft they flew and how they those criteria apply to them. All in all, it's very nicely done. The Greatest X of All Time series takes six different aircraft from several different eras as "finalists" and then announces which one of the six is the "greatest of all time." It does go into some detail as to why each particular plane won in its category, but it didn't add much in the final tally.

So, if you are looking for a list of specs about wartime aircraft and their pilots, you really could do a lot worse than this series, but if you are looking for something that's entertaining at the same time that it's educational, I would say look elsewhere.