Newly released in the theatres, the movie Plane features a MD-80. Besides the usual Hollywood aviation discrepancies (Airbus front door and jump seat area, unrealistic 6.5 hour range on a MD-80 from Singapore to Tokyo!) it has lots of good aviation cinematography. Mostly filmed in Puerto Rico to make it look like the Philippine island from the movie. I was curious who's plane they used in the filming? With no shortage of stored MD-80's to use to film a movie one could easily be bought and flown to the the filming location. There was a scene in the movie where the registration was visible but I didn't remember it. The Trailblazer livery looks a bit like the Dominican carrier Red Air. The actor Gerard Butler said in a interview how he got a chemical in his eyes during filming of the scene where he was trying to fix the brakes. He mentioned pilots on the set to help with aviation advice. I'm not sure how much CGI effects for all the ground scenes? Other than airborne scenes they probably just landed the plane at a remote airstrip somewhere.

And, check out the very final scene in the film, the shot where the camera rises above the T-tail and the movie ends. The MD-80 has different shaped elevators on the horizontal stabilizers; port and starboard are not identical. Was this actually a feature of the MD-80 or was something just slapped onto the plane to make it appear reasonably complete and intact?

Aptivaboy wrote:

And, check out the very final scene in the film, the shot where the camera rises above the T-tail and the movie ends. The MD-80 has different shaped elevators on the horizontal stabilizers; port and starboard are not identical. Was this actually a feature of the MD-80 or was something just slapped onto the plane to make it appear reasonably complete and intact?

I havent watched any of the scenes you speak of, but if you are talking about the horiz stabs, it’s very common for the MD80 stabs to rest in different positions. One might be fully up and the other laying flat. You’d see this all the time parked at the gate. Is that what you’re talking about?

No, they were shaped very differently. They both fit the profile of the horizontal stabilizers, but were shaped differently, one more oblong than the other. So, they fit but were of different dimensions. Think of the framing where the elevator goes being removed and a larger elevator being placed there. That's why I was wondering if the donor MD-80 they used was missing some parts and the studio simply added something to make it look whole, something that the average moviegoer wouldn't notice.

Have you tried to contact Doug Scroggins?.

Good chance that planes were his.

iadbudd wrote:

Newly released in the theatres, the movie Plane features a MD-80. Besides the usual Hollywood aviation discrepancies (Airbus front door and jump seat area, unrealistic 6.5 hour range on a MD-80 from Singapore to Tokyo!) it has lots of good aviation cinematography. Mostly filmed in Puerto Rico to make it look like the Philippine island from the movie. I was curious who's plane they used in the filming? With no shortage of stored MD-80's to use to film a movie one could easily be bought and flown to the the filming location. There was a scene in the movie where the registration was visible but I didn't remember it. The Trailblazer livery looks a bit like the Dominican carrier Red Air. The actor Gerard Butler said in a interview how he got a chemical in his eyes during filming of the scene where he was trying to fix the brakes. He mentioned pilots on the set to help with aviation advice. I'm not sure how much CGI effects for all the ground scenes? Other than airborne scenes they probably just landed the plane at a remote airstrip somewhere.

You would think they could have obtained a 744 or 767 seeing how most have been removed service.

I watched this last night on a whim since movie tickets at chain cinemas that I have access to are cheaper on Tuesdays, and I'd never heard of it until one of my friends asked me about it after seeing it in one of Regal's marketing emails.

I found it curious that the promotional poster graphics feature an A330 of some type (the Star Alliance logo even remains visible, and that led me to believe it's either a Turkish or South African A330, but retouched), but the aircraft in the film itself is an MD-80. The registration started with "A", I know that much, almost like an Oman registration which was something like A40- as a prefix. I imagine the registration was fake as they often can be in films with the aircraft usually scripted to have an accident of some type.

Hollywood "convenience", or not having to cast more extras also involved a Singapore-Tokyo flight only having 14 booked passengers also made me chuckle a bit.

For those interested (I was ;- ) this is the movie's trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M25zXBIUVr0

(Aptivaboy, at 1:06 you'll see it is camera angle along with stabs in different positions.)

Tugg

mooseofspruce wrote:

I watched this last night on a whim since movie tickets at chain cinemas that I have access to are cheaper on Tuesdays, and I'd never heard of it until one of my friends asked me about it after seeing it in one of Regal's marketing emails.

I found it curious that the promotional poster graphics feature an A330 of some type (the Star Alliance logo even remains visible, and that led me to believe it's either a Turkish or South African A330, but retouched), but the aircraft in the film itself is an MD-80. The registration started with "A", I know that much, almost like an Oman registration which was something like A40- as a prefix. I imagine the registration was fake as they often can be in films with the aircraft usually scripted to have an accident of some type.

Hollywood "convenience", or not having to cast more extras also involved a Singapore-Tokyo flight only having 14 booked passengers also made me chuckle a bit.

Yes passenger count of 14 even on a Holiday flight is too unrealistic!

seems like a good action flick. Especially for a Saturday, Sunday