Directed by: Michael Caton-Jones
Starring: Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, D.B. Sweeney, Tate Donovan
Revealing mistake: The B17 that crash lands in the beginning appears quite realistic, until during a head on shot when you can see daylight through the clear nose from a window in the back of the plane. This shows it to be model as in the real plane bulkheads would block this from happening.
Revealing mistake: When C-Cup's nose gets clipped and the guy falls out, it is most obviously a doll/dummy falling out.
Factual error: When the radio operator was asking for a radio check he used a phonetic alphabet. He use the word Tango, representing the letter T. Tango is the modern and current phonetic representation for T. In the 1940's the word was Tare. Able, Baker...Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle...Zebra.
Richard Rascal Moore: Uh, we ain't going to Krautville. Our plane's broke.
Eugene McVey: No, it's fixed.
Richard Rascal Moore: Christ, let's go break it.
Trivia: Very few flyable examples of the B-17 existed at the time of the shooting of the movie. One airplane "stood in" for several by having its decals changed. The B-17G featured in the film has since undergone a meticulous restoration and now lives in Renton, Washington, USA. Though it is fully flyable, certain certification issues with the Federal Aviation Administration have kept it grounded.
Question: At the briefing it's pointed out that there's a hospital, school, etc. around the factory they're bombing, and Dennis is very adamant about getting the bombs "right in the pickle barrel" so a lot of innocent people don't get hurt. But the planes are spread out over a large area in the sky, and are also moving when the bombs are dropped, so wouldn't the bombs land over a large area and not just in the limited vicinity of the factory?
Chosen answer: It would seem that every plane's Norden bombsight would drop from different angles, etc., each designated for a common target. So, 2 planes could be higher, lower, ahead or behind the target and each hit the target, if the bombadiers had an accurate fix on the target.
Answer: Even with the Norden bomb sight, during WW2 bombing was generally very inaccurate.
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Suggested correction: British forces adopted the American phonetic alphabet in 1942.
American forces weren't using "Tango" until 1956. When the British and American forces coordinated calling alphabets in 1943, they used "Tare", not "Tango."
Bishop73