Product: Flyboys [Blu-ray] (2006)
Rating: 3.0
Good Exciting Adventure Film.
Flyboys is a film about American volunteer aviators during the first World War before America declared war on Germany in April 1917. The movie is action packed and exciting as far as the special effects. Hollywood is long over do for a Good WWI aviation film and this is an area where I would like to see more movies about considering WWI Aviation is my hobby.Hollywood does a descent job with historical accuracy however I did find some errors in it. But if you are looking for a good film to watch for excitement and adventure then this is a good pick. If you don't care about historical accuracies, stopreading now. :-)Some of the historical inaccuracies I found were: 1) The French Neuport 17 biplanes had rotory engines, not radial engines. Rotory engines were round like radials but spun on the camshaft with the propeller. I believe the Neuports used a 80 horse power Le Rhone engine. The rotory engines in early and mid WWI had two speeds, on and off. 2) The German Fokker DR1 triplanes did not enter the war until August of 1917 when the Flyboys would have been flying SPAD VII. The movie should have depicted either Halberstadt DII or Albatros DII and DIII. Fokker Eindeckers (monoplanes) were near the end of thier life span in mid to late 1916 when this story is depicted. 3) Maneuvers pulled by the fragile Neuports depicted in the film would have ripped the upper wings off which was a weakness of the Neuport series, especially pulling out of deep dives. 4) Not every German Fokker DR1 was all red. Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron flew an all red fokker DR1 and was killed in one but even the Red Baron fly non-all red triplanes from time to time. Although squadrons usually keep to the squadrons markings some German pilots of certain rank and/or number of kills could mark their planes with their own personal markings. 5) The straight (latin) cross on the German Fokkers did not come to being until March 1918, long after the dis-banning of the Lafayette Escadrille. 6) Where is there mention of Raoul Lufbery and William Thaw two of America's first aces and early members of the Escadrille? 7) From my research I have not found where the Lafayette Escadrille brought down a German Zepplin....I'll keep researching.But again as a film to watch for action, Flyboys meets the bill. And as mentioned in other reviews Hollywood did get some things right histoical.