John Badham knows diddily squatt about helicopters!

[Kooshmeister]

I didn't know where else to post this. There is no general discussion of aircraft films section on here, which is kind of strange. I guess that's what the talk pages for each movie is for, but, eh, whatever, I didn't wanna clutter Blue Thunder's page up (even though I make brief mention of this issue on there).

While Blue Thunder is an excellent film and John Badham an equally excellent director... his constantly referring to Blue Thunder as a modified Aérospatiale Alouette in the Special Edition DVD commentary and the documentaries - despite all evidence to the contrary - is pretty hilarious.

And this is not just a blatant mistake on Badham's part, but hilariously bad documentary making, because nobody ever bothers to correct him. Blue Thunder is, and always has been, a modified Aérospatiale Gazelle, which resembles the Alouette about as much as a Ford Mustang resembles a Ford Taurus.

To call Blue Thunder an Alouette and not a Gazelle so consistently is just laughable. Did nobody involved in making the special features do the barest minimum of research into helicopters? Why did no one correct Badham? I loved the DVD apart from this but it's clear the people who made the DVD's documentaries know nothing about aircraft (a similar problem exists on the Jaws 2 documentary, where they call the Hughes 269 "a little Bell helicopter").

Another thing. Badham even claims that the late, great Jim Gavin called the thing an Alouette ("The Alouette is the one you want," is what Badham claims Gavin told him). Which is funny given that Gavin flew a Gazelle in two prior films, The Gauntlet and The Cat from Outer Space (the same one both times in fact) and it said "Gazelle" on the tail, so he should know what to call it.

So either Badham is misremembering what Gavin told him, or Gavin knew a lot about flying helicopters but nothing beyond that like their names, or Gavin did actually suggest an Alouette and Badham got a Gazelle instead thinking it was an Alouette. Either way, whoever is to blame, the information pertaining to Blue Thunder itself in the commentary and the documentary is a good example of what happens when nobody fact checks.

[Bthebest]

This is often the case in movies etc.

Details about this sort of stuff are usually irrelevant to the directors/producers. They just say to their transport/prop guy or whatever 'i need a helicopter/plane that can do this etc', then they go and sort it.

Granted it is quite bad that no one told him for the purpose of the documentary what the actual helicopter was - but then again - very few people would know otherwise

Its just the same if I try and explain to friends etc something about the differences between an Airbus A319 and a Boeing 747 - they have no idea what i'm talking about - but if i say an easyJet and a Jumbo Jet they have a vague idea.

My point - an Alouette may be the only helicopter he knows.

[Kooshmeister]

Fair enough. It just seems strange James Gavin apparently also got it wrong, but, again, Badham either is misremembering what Gavin told him, or Gavin did suggest the Alouette and Badham purchased the wrong helicopter. Regretfully Mr. Gavin is no longer with us to give his side of the story.

And Alouette isn't the only helicopter Badham knows; he correctly identifies Bell JetRangers in the commentary (so does Colonel Cochrane, in-story). Not that this means much. They're probably one of the most well-known helicopters on Earth.