Did you ever see gun camera footage of an old WWII aircraft shooting at something, those squiggly little tracers dancing all over the place? Did it ever make you wonder just how those guys could hit anything? The truth is, it was a little easier than it might first look, since the bullets really didn't corkscrew off in random directions as it appears on those old films. In fact, it is the vibration of the gun camera that is making the tracers appear to wobble all about the sky...real tracers describe a normal ballistic path through the air...relatively straight until the bullet eventually loses some momentum and drops away under the insistent pull of gravity. This is not to belittle the marksmenship of these acres of old, who had their hands full trying to get the shot...the bullets may not have danced about much, but the plane that fired them did, and it was no doubt quite a challenge lining up a shot from a vibrating hunk of steel hurtling through the air at high speeds against an equally fast moving and wildly manuevering target. Too make the pilot's aiming even more problematical, the tracer ammunition had slightly different ballistic properties than the solid bullets, and all of the ammunition fired, tracer or no, would increasingly disperse over a distance.

But at least the bullets went more or less straight.

So I found it amusing when the designers of the flight sim, "B-17II: The Mighty Eighth", decided to make their tracer bullets look squiggly in an effort to improve realism. The designers had apparently watched numerous gun camera films and decided that this was the way it really looked. But the people who were really there would tell you differently.

This is an increasingly common trend I see in today's media-immersed culture, and one I hope to combat a little with this article. It seems that more and more we come to know the world through the camera's eyes, rather than our own. This can often be misleading. I have a good friend from Pakistan who was astounded upon arriving in the States to find that snow was, indeed, very cold. He had seen it in films and TV, but had never actually felt it hit his skin or soak into his boots, let alone had to scrape a car window at the crack of dawn. It had never occurred to him that it might be uncomfortable to the touch. It was quite a reality check for him, to say the least.

What follows is a list of common misconceptions about airplanes and air combat that have been perpetuated by movies, TV and the newest player in the fieldd, the video game...and the facts that will hopefully work to dispel those myths.

Explosions: Hollywood loves a good explosion. Cars never fail to explode when they fall off cliffs or hit darn near anything, and airplanes do the same thing. Bombs and artillery shells in the war movies make satisfying fiery explosions, too...except in real life, they didn't. Most military weapons use smokeless powders whenever possible, to minimize telltale gun flashes and increase the efficiency of the charge. Of course, some bombs and shells are incendiary in nature, and create very nasty fireballs when used, but by and large movies tend to overdo the fireworks a bit for visual drama.

Bullets: Bullets make a pronounced crack when they whiz overhead...the tiny sonic boom of the bullet piercing the sound barrier. This is rarely depicted in movies. Likewise, the effects of high-calibre aircraft munitions striking the pilot and crew are often (thankfully) underplayed.

Planes: It is rare that the film crew manages to get it's hands on a plane of the make and model appropriate to the events being portrayed. Given the rarity and expense of vintage aircraft, that they succeed as often as they do is impressive. Models and special effects are often used to impersonate full-size aircraft, or multiply them. However they get them, one thing is certain...they will inevitably find themselves in a dogfight. What audiences won't see are aerial victories scored the way most of them actually were...by an unseen attacker sneaking up on his opponent. The majority of downed pilots never saw their attacker, who generally dove down from out of the sun or crept up from behind and below to fire a single, fatal burst. Modern jet fighter pilots rarely even see eachother at all, except on radar.

Lens Flare: This is an odd phenomenon increasingly seen in flight sims...the sun is often seen to create a lens flare, an optical effect associated with camera lenses when they are exposed to bright lights. While the designers seem to think this enhances realism, in truth the lens flare is a property of synthetic lenses, not flesh and blood ones. Unless you wear glasses, you are not likely to see a lens flare in real life. I think this is another example of designers basing their conception of what is real upon what they have seen in film and video, rather than insights born of actual experience. Or maybe they just can't resist dipping into this bag of optical programming tricks. Ironically, photographers normally consider lens flares an unwanted artifact and endeavor to minimize them.

Flying Skills: Ever notice how a Hollywood pilot is at ease in anything with two wings? Not so for real pilots, who generally need at least some time to familiarize themselves with a different make of aircraft than the one they are used to flying. Every make of plane has a different instrument layout and unique handling qualities, and there can be vast differences between aircraft of altogether different classes. A Cessna pilot without specialized training cannot just hop into the cockpit of a Boeing 747 or F-18 Hornet and fly away...he would probably be killed almost instantly, assuming he could even get the engines started. Even if he did survive, he would be arrested when he got back down...the FAA requires all pilots to be rated in the class of aircraft they fly.

G-Forces: Physics is something Hollywood turns a winking eye to more often than not, and never more so than in the case of g-forces. Rapidly manuevering aircraft subject their pilots to varying degrees of g-loads...that is, they experience inertial forces equal to many times the force of gravity...and yet your average Hollywood pilot seems immune to these bone crushing forces and will chat conversationally on the radio (another FAA no-no) while performing moves that should have left him grimacing and buried in his seat, unable to even turn his head...let alone talk.

The Radio: And speaking of speaking...pilots are discouraged from talking on the radio except out of neccessity. Military pilots are often told not to speak at all to avoid enemy detection. And nobody can talk intelligibly on a radio with the canopy open at two hundred knots.

Oxygen: Here's an interesting tidbit a much wiser pilot (my flight instructor, in fact) taught me: I used to find it odd that many Hollywood pilots seem to have no real need for oxygen, except when they flew into combat(or wanted to talk on the radio). In reality, we all need it above 12,000 feet, if we wish to avoid hypoxia...or worse. So how is it Hollywood pilots can breath the rarified air at 40,000 feet? As my instructor sagely pointed out, most modern combat aircraft are pressurized, so there is no need to wear an oxygen mask. The mask is there in case battle damage results in cockpit depressurization. Hollywood actually gets this one right, more often than not.

Not-So-Happy Landings: No pilot feels good about losing an engine, and pilots of single-engine planes constantly keep their eyes open for a nearby soft spot just for such an eventuality...but it is rarely the disaster Hollywood would have you think. A light aircraft without engine power is still a glider, and given sound flying skills and a little luck, most pilots can get it down safely, or with minor damage. Hollywood planes tend to plunk down hard, which is just bad flying, and more often than not seem to lose their wings somehow along the way. On the flip side of this equation, Hollywood has a very optimistic view of the ability of aircraft to ditch safely into the sea. There is a simplistic logic to the idea, I suppose...water is soft, and ground is not, so water landings are safer than land ones...but the reality is quite the reverse. Ditching into the sea (or a lake, or whatever) is very dangerous, and often fatal. Aircraft strike the water just as hard as they would strike solid earth, and the landing spot is rarely smooth. Despite their light weight, most planes will sink like rocks once they splash down, too, so anyone rendered unconcious by the impact has precious little time to get free of the wreckage. And then, of course, their troubles are not yet over...it is time to start swimming.

Superjocks: Pilots, especially fighter pilots, are normally portrayed as athletic alpha males with plenty of swagger and ego, and it is true that some pilots are really like that. It was probably truer years ago than it is today. Today's pilots are as varied in personality as any group of people, but are rarely as reckless and impulsive as the ones you see on TV. Flying is a highly technical skill that demands discipline and careful planning, and a good pilot is more of a meticulous organizer than a hard-drinking superjock.

In case you haven't guessed by now, I am the worst person in the world to take to an airplane movie. But I haven't written this article to ruin any cinematic experiences for you. I reserve that priviledge for my closest friends, who have learned to ignore me during screenings of Top Gun. This article is just to give you a little insight into how real flying differs from fictional flying. None of this is meant to prevent you from enjoying movies and video games for what they are...entertainment.