Terror in the Skys - Military Air Disasters

Rating:
Summary: Terror In The Skies
Review: As a member of the Northern California Chapter of the American Aviation Historical Society and an avid collector of aviation videos, laserdiscs & DVDs I was eagerly awaiting this release. However, I found myself disappointed after screening it. While, technically well mastered, without any apparent digital artifacts, from different types of film and video stock, the contents of this DVD leave a lot to be desired. Featuring footage from the 1920s through the 1990s, many of the scenes have been in earlier compilations, i.e. The Challenge Of Flight series. A further drawback is the almost complete lack of aircraft identification and the circumstances under which these mishaps occured. And actually, a good part of the footage is not Military Air Disasters but gun camera footage and stock footage of normal air operations. Now, some of the footage is very good. The mishaps that occur during ordnance drops was fascinating but too brief and without identification. The DVD bonus features include 2 screens describing the F-16 and the F-14 and a very brief slide show of aircraft, some of which are not featured in the main body of the DVD. The cover shows an F-16 exploding in a fireball. This scene is not on the DVD. The potential for an interesting and stimulating DVD on this subject is out there. This DVD misses the target.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible in the skies
Review: I would like to add that a lot of this footage repeats, and it is sometimes put together in nonsensical ways. For example, modern footage may be shown of a plane firing a missile and then it cuts to 1970's footage of a tank exploding. Don't buy this. Try the 'Challenge of Flight' DVDs.