Flying Action (1945)

[Music] it's flying action on the screen the camera record of men's conquest of the skies through the magic of this pictorial record we give you history written in the heavens drama made in the cloud [Music] it was back in 1903 that the pioneering Wright brothers Orville and Wilbur flew the first heavier-than-air machine above the sands of Kill Devil hill at Kitty Hawk North Carolina then came Perry Oh flying his animated box kite across the English Channel peerless women like Ruth law forced the coining of a new word aviatrix [Music] by the advent of World War one the plane was not only a gadget it was a weapon here's Eddie Rickenbacker and his famous Lafayette Escadrille the head in the ring squadron which engaged in so many aerial combats with a black nose Richthofen squadron those early dog fighters were still a long way however from the fighting plane of today [Music] in touch general penny Mitchell to show the trains could sink battleships bombs away and the battleship is sunk but for many the play it's still not proved itself more pioneers were needed and more pioneers were found such as the daredevil pilots who were first to prove the male must go through on wings there was the hero Lindbergh who took his spirit of st. Louis across the ocean to Paris non-stop [Music] there were Will Rogers and Wiley Post who lost their lives but who remained deathless heroes of the air Amelia Earhart who flew off into the wild blue yonder Ruth elder a great woman pilot here's Ruth Nichols another gal who proved that women rated wings it was a risky business flying in those days and sometimes faith the matter the sacrifice here's Jeanne fails in his power pack speedster the GB caught by the camera in an unforgettable shot as it breaks into flames above the airfield burning wreckage is his Monument and here is that great silver cigar called the Hindenburg queen of the lighter-than-air flee a static spark ignites the hydrogen in her tanks and in a few searing seconds she crumbles to the ground a charred and smoldering wreckage of a great liner of the air undaunted men kept trying to fly in gyros to take off and land on a bedsheet in a strange helicopter that harbors flies backwards and lands on a dime and there was stranger contraptions too many a man with a high-flying imagination wound up with his face in the dirt this pedal pusher was perfectly designed except for one little point it couldn't fly here's a rocket bite with wings or how to get a hot foot while sitting down [Music] and here's a human biter but it was in World War two that the plane really wrote history in the skies first the threat dive bombers the suckers peppered the ground with machineguns they're screaming dive spearhead of the axis drive across Europe until British planes and attack drove him back the plane became the carrier of those courageous parachutists who hit the silk here's the p39 Airacobra with a cannon on its nose the tomahawk the ship The Flying Tigers flew into the air with the Flying Fortress the b-17 and its mate The Liberator b-24 pressing home 1,000 plane attacks but getting their bombs away while their wing mates were going down in flames [Music] in the late stages of the European war came the buzz bomb a 400 mile an hour pen Atlas plane that could only be coughing shot down by a jet interceptor [Music] off the drawing boards came great banana shaped helicopters able to drop combat soldiers and surprise miles behind enemy lines [Music] bigger bombs required bigger bombers like this intercontinental v36 with 6-piston and for jet engines supplying a mighty thrust of power in the very last days in Europe we saw the jet fighters changing fighter tactics solving the very barrier of sound itself [Music] in the Pacific it was still a carrier war Corsairs and Hellcats launched from carrier decks fill the sky and scorched the enemy back to his homeland his weapon of reply was kamikaze the suicide plane attacked Westholme at the cost of the plane in the private boat and what a toll the kamikaze stuff before the victory was won [Music] the war over aircraft development turn completely toward Jets reaction trust took planes up to 700 miles an hour [Music] jet-fighters required jet interceptors [Music] among strange new experiments with a Northrop crying wing a frightening vision of a future [Music] and here's the hot new jet bomber the b-47 stratojet with swept-back wings and sound barrier and a landing speed so hot a parachute had to be released to slow it down for the approach to earth [Music] Jetts not being fast enough the rocket was built into a plane and the XS one drops from the Bombay of a mothership sleep through the sky at close to 1,500 miles an hour [Music] as for the future well it looks like this giant rockets burning liquid oxygen and alcohol maneuvered by electronic devices placed their noses into the sky to other covenants other planets who knows where but always climbing through space to write another great chapter in the exciting history objects flying action [Music]