Shipmate! I was in RE Div too, albeit a bit later. (1995 - 1996).
The Final Countdown ... counting down
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Shipmate! I was in RE Div too, albeit a bit later. (1995 - 1996).
One of my top 5 favorite movies of all time, and the one which more than anything else drove me to become a naval aviator myself. Sitting in a base movie theater at age 12 watching this for about the third time, I was gonna be the guy flying the F-14's with the skull and crossbones on the tail. Turns out I got to be the guy chasing subs in a P-3,but I've got no complaints. This movie helped chart my life's course. I even have the original novelization by Martin Caiden, and entire soundtrack by John Scott- it took me years to track it down, because I was never able to find it on vinyl.
I've got the edition on disc that has the interview with a bunch of the pilots from VF-84 who made the movie. There are some interesting sea stories that go along with it. One of the most interesting notes involves the dogfight scene where Fox Fallon damn near dumps his Tomcat in the drink. The sound-mix guy showed the daily to his wife and had her scream into a microphone like she thought her husband was going to die. He mixed that shriek with the spooling of the TF-30's and that is why the sound of the engines as he pulls it out is so bizarre when you watch the movie.
John Birmingham's Axis of Time series delivers on the premise of the Final Countdown in ways the movie could never have touched. It's a fantastic series of books for anyone who was a fan of the movie.
I've got the edition on disc that has the interview with a bunch of the pilots from VF-84 who made the movie. There are some interesting sea stories that go along with it. One of the most interesting notes involves the dogfight scene where Fox Fallon damn near dumps his Tomcat in the drink. The sound-mix guy showed the daily to his wife and had her scream into a microphone like she thought her husband was going to die. He mixed that shriek with the spooling of the TF-30's and that is why the sound of the engines as he pulls it out is so bizarre when you watch the movie.
John Birmingham's Axis of Time series delivers on the premise of the Final Countdown in ways the movie could never have touched. It's a fantastic series of books for anyone who was a fan of the movie.
I was in 2 plant RAR from 1978-79 and and transferred to Engineering Department from Reactor Department when we went on a Med Cruise from summer of 1979 through fall 82, they didn't do any filming below the second deck.
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I have heard two sides to this story. The pilot of the Tomcat generally claims in interviews that he had everything under control, but some of his squadron mates who were in VF-84 Jolly Rogers and were also there in Key West during the filming of the dogfight scenes say that the plane definitely departed and he was able to pull up in time. There's also a great story of a high-ranking Admiral attending the premier with the pilots who flew for the movie...and they had to "assure" him that the F-14 and its crew were never in any real danger.
I guess they also had a lot of trouble keeping the Tomcats slow enough to interact with the "Japanese Zeros" in any sort of visually meaningful way, to the point where flying as slow as they did for some of those scenes was actually legitimately dangerous. The Pratt&Whitney TF-30 engines were good, but they were also notorious for compressor stalls. It wasn't until the F-14B replaced them with General Electric F-110 engines that this issue was resolved. The production crew tried filming the air scenes with a helicopter, but it wasn't adequate (they'd just get blurs of Tomcats rushing by the nearly stationary camera). They eventually had to shell-out for a repurposed WWII bomber that was specially outfitted for filming aerial scenes.
You sir, have lived the life I only dreamed of as a boy. Thank you for your service.
I read the novelization as well, when I was about 13 years old. I found it in a beach cottage we had rented. It was old and beat-up, but I devoured every page.
BTW- there is a 4K disk available...I got it for Christmas and it looks and sounds spectacular. My whole home theater shakes when the Tomcat takes off in the very beginning.
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I started in 1 Plant Switchgear then moved to 2 Plant Primary (RAR) as work center supervisor.
Not at all surprised that they didn't do any filming below 2nd deck. There's nothing "glamorous" down there anyway.
And in certain Reactor or Engineering spaces if they weren't wearing a TLD, they would get to kiss the deck.
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And in certain Reactor or Engineering spaces if they weren't wearing a TLD, they would get to kiss the deck.
Haha! Yep.
One of my favourite movies... It's a neat little closed loop
Also co-creator of the cyber men.
I always loved this film. I always wanted to name ships in my made up stories the Nimitz after this one.