Masters of the Air (new WWII AppleTV series) [SPOILERS]

[Ran]

The 334th Fighter Group was based in England and escorted bomber groups in Mustangs on the Berlin raid featured in episode 7, and their planes had red noses (fairly common for American fighters, that) and also red tail markings. So I suspect that's what was shown, or at least intended to be shown.

[hauberk]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

The 334th Fighter Group was based in England and escorted bomber groups in Mustangs on the Berlin raid featured in episode 7, and their planes had red noses (fairly common for American fighters, that) and also red tail markings. So I suspect that's what was shown, or at least intended to be shown.

Good to know.  Looking at the 334th, it appears that pretty much just the rudder was red.  Looking at this clip. 

1:07-1:10, the tail markings are much more extensive.  There's not enough detail on the nose to say say for certain, but the tail markings are closer to the 302nd.

[Ran]

11 hours ago, hauberk said:

1:07-1:10, the tail markings are much more extensive.  There's not enough detail on the nose to say say for certain, but the tail markings are closer to the 302nd.

Rewatched in 4k that moment to get more detail, and you're right, that looks like they reused a Red Tails model even though the next episode establishes they've been operating in Italy. The only thing that gave me pause was a small dark blob of color on the forward part of the tail... but then I looked quickly at some material from the next episode (at the 37 mark, I'm linking a couple of seconds earlier)  and you can actually see that the flight leader's plane has that very square of black on it. So either they mistakingly used  that model, because the VFX people thought the 332nd was there, or they just decided not to bother dressing another model and just reused what they had made for the 332nd.

[hauberk]

44 minutes ago, Ran said:

Rewatched in 4k that moment to get more detail, and you're right, that looks like they reused a Red Tails model even though the next episode establishes they've been operating in Italy. The only thing that gave me pause was a small dark blob of color on the forward part of the tail... but then I looked quickly at some material from the next episode (at the 37 mark, I'm linking a couple of seconds earlier)  and you can actually see that the flight leader's plane has that very square of black on it. So either they mistakingly used  that model, because the VFX people thought the 332nd was there, or they just decided not to bother dressing another model and just reused what they had made for the 332nd.

It seems odd that they would unintentionally do that for what amounts to the longest shot of the fighters sweeping by.  Sloppy. 
 

That said, while I knew that they operated out of Italy, I just assumed that it was a combined group mission. I’ve got both Miller and Crosby’s books near the top of my read pile, shortly after a book on the 442nd RCT - another candidate for BoB treatment!

[Ran]

I can't find any evidence that they were flying escorts to Berlin on March 6. In fact, an amateur enthusiast who volunteers at his local aviation museum with a focus on WW2 Bombers posted a historical document listing all the fighter groups involved in the operation in  the course of a video he made pointing out historical inaccuracies:

No 332nd involved. In comments, people make the assumption that budgetary constraints led then to just use their Red Tail model for that close-up sweep because it was the most detailed model they had since they were featuring in the next episode.

ETA: Ooooh. Came across an interesting detail when digging further:

Quote

The 332^nd Fighter Group did not paint the tails of their aircraft red until after they began to escort bombers for the Fifteenth Air Force.  The first such escort missions began in early June 1944, and the group was flying P-47 aircraft then.

So they wouldn't even be flying P-51s for the March 6 bombing raid. Obviously, they're so famously associated with it (alas, P-38 Lightning never gets any love) that I'm not surprised if the show went a bit ahistorical.

A lot of people feel the VFX budget was stretched to the limit, so I suppose they cut corners where they could.

Edited March 20 by Ran

[Corvinus85]

Question: considering the discrimination that the Tuskegee Airmen faced (even in the show their commander remarks that many of them should have been promoted by now), would they have even been upgraded to P-51s at the same time with most other groups, or where they at the tail end of that switch?

[Ran]

4 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Question: considering the discrimination that the Tuskegee Airmen faced (even in the show their commander remarks that many of them should have been promoted by now), would they have even been upgraded to P-51s at the same time with most other groups, or where they at the tail end of that switch?

Google says that 14 of the 15 fighter groups had P-51s by the end of 1944, so they certainly weren't last. That said, within their group, they seem to have gotten them later than some, at least. One of the things I learned from the video above, though, is that there really weren't all that many Mustangs to go around to begin with. The March 6 raid had slightly over 100 of them, total.

[hauberk]

Scheduling issues kept us from finishing the series until last night. Overall, I’m satisfied. I do think that it would have benefitted from a couple of more episodes and a slightly bigger budget - flipping on the red tail model from earlier, the absence of B17Gs was also noted, and likely for similar reasons. 
 

I cheered when I saw the Toby jug.