Friday, March 18, 2022

there was a movie called Battle of Britain, and they needed 6 B 25s... so a crazy guy made a documentary about ferrying 6 across the Atlantic, B-25 Mitchells Do Fly in 1978





a documentary following stunt pilot/adventurer/madman John Hawke as he ferries 6 un-airworthy and decrepit old vintage B-25 Mitchell bombers across the Atlantic to take part in a the filming of the 1979 film Hannover Street. The planes encounter all sorts of mechanical troubles and bad weather, splitting up into four of them going via the Azores across the Atlantic, and the other two trying the northern route via Greenland.



To film the all-colour aerial sequences for the movie it was obvious that a special flying camera platform would be required. It had to be one which would be fast enough to be able to keep up with the fighters, and yet be large enough to ably accommodate the Panavision cameras of the film unit.

The producers turned to John 'Jeff' Hawke, who had previously been associated with a number of aviation films. Hawke was a former Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant, who at one stage was involved in the abortive restoration to flying condition of Messerschmitt Bf 109G-2 Black Six at RAF Wattisham in the 1960s, he was also one of the Mosquito pilots during the filming of 633 Squadron.

During the mid to late 1960s 'Jeff' Hawke was President of an American-based company called Euramericair, which just happened to have recently acquired from Panama, at a reported cost of $11 ,500, a North American B-25 Mitchell twin-engined bomber, 44-31508 (N6578D). Built as a B-25J-30-NJ, the aircraft was delivered to the United States Army Air Force in June 1945. Post-war it was modified by the Hughes Corporation to TB-25K status. Demobbed from the military it passed through several civilian owners until taken on strength by Euramericair. For the purpose of the Battle of Britain's air to air filming work the Mitchell was much modified. In November 1967 the B-25 flew out of Florida bound for the UK. The Atlantic crossing took a total of 22 hours to complete



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