You’re a writer – you know how it goes. You get fixated on this idea, and it just won’t go away until you finally get it sprawled out on a piece of paper.
Same thing with videos.
During our visit to the SoCal Wing of the Commemorative Air Force for the California Air Museums project, Ron Fleishman, the Wing’s historian, told us this great story about something called The Battle of Palmdale.
The story’s about the powerful and massive Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat fighter, a single-engine airplane that can rightfully claim the lion’s share of air victories in the skies over the Pacific during WW II.
Like the compact disc, the cassette tape, and the LP vinyl record, technology bypassed these remarkable airplanes so quickly that they were obsolete within two years of the war’s end. By 1956 they were used as radio-controlled drone targets for guided missiles – they didn’t even rate a pilot.
So, anyway, this battle story involves one of these remote-control Hellcats that goes haywire and flies, completely out of control, over Los Angeles in 1956.
The Air Force dispatches two state-of-the-art F-89 Scorpion jets to shoot it down, but they fail. And not just fail, but, COMPLETELY fail, firing a total of 208 missiles at the lumbering old timer – every single one of them miss.
It’s a great story, and I think it would make a terrific video. Now, of course, you can’t quite get your hands on real airplanes, but, hey, what about 3D models?
You can score a good-looking Hellcat for five bucks on Turbosquid.
But an F-89? Fogeddaboudit!
I scrolled through literally thousands of models, wishing, and a’hoping, and a’praying that somebody mislabeled their model when they uploaded it. Hey, it could happen!
F-4s, F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, 22s,35s, 84s, 86s, 100s, even F-101 Voodoo fighter jets aplenty were to be found.
But an F-89 Scorpion? No, sir, not to be found in this man’s 3D universe. What’s up with that?
Actually, I did finally find one, and it was for free, but you had to sign up for this guy’s website, and that was, like, $65. Uh, no, thank you.
So, yes, I did find one. And, although I’d gladly trade my kingdom for a good model, I’m not uh idiot!
And that means the story has to stay on hold until I can figure out another way to shoot it. There are several videos on The Battle of Palmdale, but they all use old stock footage from the DOD.
Surely we can do better!
Hmm, how to acquire a Scorpion… and evil plot unfolds…
John D Reinhart 