"If you're high-fiving walking to the jets, things like that, you're most likely going to die in that mission." Spoiler: Will Smith's wing man does die.

It's not an inaccuracy in Dunkirk that the aircraft are flying in too tight a formation - that was how the Brits did it in the first part of the war. They learned quickly to loosen up and fly finger four like the Luftwaffe.

This man's voice should be used in voice acting for pilots.

His headset proves he’s a fighter pilot

"If the Air Force is resorting to teenage kids to rescue their downed pilots...we're in a sh*tload of trouble man." That line killed me lol xD

"Iron Eagle has got to be the most ridiculous movie about fighter aviation that could have ever been created." He really needs to see Iron Eagle 3.

Very interesting video. I have a tiny nitpicking comment on your Dunkirk comments, if I may... At 13:30 you mentioned that the pilots switch fuel tanks... in that particular scene, that's not what the pilot is doing. The fuel gauge in the Spitfire was plugged directly on the battery in an open circuit configuration and the button next to the gauge was used to close the circuit (powering the gauge in the process). Therefore, you'd get an indication of 0 unless you kept the button pressed, which would power on the gauge and display the fuel indication. At 14:00 you also mentioned that the pilots were too close... in fact, this scene is historically accurate since flying "the Vic" was part of the RAF doctrine at that time to fly as close as possible. In theory, this was meant to increase the "volume of fire" when intercepting bombers (pilots were expected to fly formation with the lead and fire their guns while staying in formation), which was more or less useless against fighters. The Flying Vic concept was abandoned prior to the Battle of Britain when RAF high command realized that this really wasn't working as they intended. Germans affectionately referred to the Flying Vic as the "Row of Idiots" (Idiotenreihen).

I can watch these all day!

7:40 - If anime has taught me anything, it's that the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of one implausibly-skilled teenager stumbling by happenstance upon a war machine.

The spitfire did not have wing tanks. It had a central tank located directly behind the engine and in front of the pilot (meaning many spitfire pilots burned to death in their cockpits). The fuel gauge was electric but had to be energised via a switch in order to get a reading. So what you’re seeing in that scene is the pilots checking the gauge, rather than selecting different tanks.

‘In Wall Street, guys will push their own mother in front of a train to make a buck.’ Accurate

That was one of the reasons they changed to the finger four formation, but they actually flew that tight according to British pilots in that time period. They did have RDF, but not like what they had later. Love the videos though, i truly do.

in Dunkirk, they have it very accurate, the formation they are doing is called Vic 3 and was mainly used in 1940 which wasn't that much of help to the brits due to the tightness of the formation

I know everyone is critiquing his opinions on the Dunkirk formation, but I just want to clarify that when they are both looking at the downed aircraft, he sort of implies that it's inaccurate. It's actually accurate though because they paid the price. The movie recognizes it as something pilots should try not to do, so they make the mistake, and they pay the price. So, the mistake was made by the pilots, not the director of the movie. That's the perfect example of what would happen if the pilots made that mistake in real life.

I was a Plane Captain in the Navy for E6-B aircraft. The only names on our planes were the current plane captains, since like he said, they were our planes. That was my best memory of my service time, seeing my plane taking off the first time.

Dunkirk was and is a masterpiece of a film. I can not fault it. It kept me engaged, on edge, invoked emotion perfectly... The scene where are the British boats come in to save the soldiers had me in tears

14:15 That is actually accurate for the time period, as far as the 3 ship "Vic" formation goes. The RAF basically stuck with it through the battle of britain, because they simply did not have the time to train the nugget pilots (who were seriously lacking in experience and flight hours) how to fly the fingertip/finger-four formation that the Germans had adapted a short while before the start of WW2, during the civil war in Spain (Condor Legion) . The Finnish Air Force also adopted the fingertip formation independently around 1936 I believe.

"You are defeated. Instead of shooting where I was, you should have shot at where I was going to be." Emperor Lrrr of Omicron Persei 8

Man the Dunkirk scenes, especially compared against iron eagle, are just phenomenal.

At the time of Dunkirk, the RAF did fly tight “vics” (three plane formations). Spitfire Mk Is carried 14 seconds of ammo. At Dunkirk, few of the fighter pilots had been in air combat, since the last war was over 20 years previous so it wasn’t unusual for them to get fixated on a kill or something else going on instead of “quartering” the sky around them to check for bandits.

This feels like if Bill Burr was a former a former naval pilot

I'm surprised you didn't talk about how Tom Hardy's character glided the plane around without fuel back and forth for like 45 minutes before finally crashing.

Independence day doesn't seem like a 23 year old movie.

18:18 when he talks about ramming, there was this time in the Battle of Britain where a Hurricane (another British warplane at the time) spotted a German Dornier bomber heading towards Buckingham Palace. Because he had used all his ammunition earlier in a dogfight, he decided to ram the tail of the bomber with his wing, and it went clean through. The pilot managed to bail out and survive.

This is good content, informative and fun to watch. These people always feel like they're genuinely having fun explaining. Make more of these instead of the " Ten things this rich person can't live without." That doesn't matter to me, it's just people who I don't even care to recognize telling me how used they are to their luxuries.

13:50 that formation is accurate, that was the standard formation of RAFs fighters during Dunkirk, the leader was the only one in the formation that was able to effectively search for enemy planes, the other two had to concentrate on keeping the formation, it was until the Battle of england that that formation was modified making it a lot more wide, with a lot of separation between the planes. So, the formation in that movie was accurate.

My husband was an F-15 crew chief stationed out of LAFB, 27th Fighter Squadron; thank you for the recognition of their role in combat aviation, and thank you for your service.

That bit where the spits are flying in close formation is actually historically accurate. They lost a lot of planes before they figured out that they needed to be further apart

Did anyone else have a flashback to The Princess Bride when he said "Inconceivable"?

Have a shot every time this guy says "umm" That's right You're still sober

Man.... That first line... If you're high fiving before going into jets and stuffs like that.. You are most likely going to die on that mission 😂😂🤣🤣🤣

Every branch: Chair force Every branch under fire: WHERE THE F*** IS OUR AIR SUPPORT?

Comment on Dunkirk formation: At that time the RAF rigidly stuck to close formations flying - they took some time to adopt the more effective - and safer, finger four used by the Luftwaffe, which used the fourth man to weave behind the leading element. It is unrealistic to compare initial air fighting tactics of the WW2 RAF to modern tactics - you might as well criticise the line formations of the American civil war to fire and manoeuvre used today.

Every ww2 pilot "I am out of ammo" the Japanese " I am the ammo"

That tight formation used by the spitfires was called the 'vic' and it is accurate to early war British air doctrine

I hope this guy never stops doing these videos - awesome!

Thank you for addressing calling a Marine “soldier!”

You are right about calling a Marine a "soldier". My head did explode when I saw and heard that in the theater. My boys were like " easy Devil!"

I'm glad they did another video with Whiz! I could listen to this guy talk about this for hours and hours and not get bored. Please do another one of these!

I’m a fan of this guy simply cuz he said “it gives me agita”. Love it!

The CrewChief nod was pretty cool, thank you!

11:11 I'm happy that both you and C.W Lemoine tore this awful movie to shreds. Theres a reason the Air Force refused to help make it. Also the most ludicrous part is that the O-6 Colonel, who has a job in the air force reserves, is gonna sacrifice his career by stealing an F-16 and letting a teenager fly it. Definitely jail time.

Always love these breakdowns

I love hearing this guy talk. Please bring more people like him to review movies.

I would've loved maybe the Battle of Britain reviewed over Dunkirk, both great films and shows the courage of pilots but I think there would be more to analyse and inform the wider audience on Battle of Britain.

12:33 a rare occasion an American acknowlages our success and gallantry in ww2

Love this dude! Love this series!!

The spitfires' formation is called the Vic formation.

Good to see a pilot giving us plane captains and maintainers a good name :)

Whiz : We are taught to compartmentalize. You can't wonder did I pay the mortgage, is the grass too long.... Deadpool : (in the middle of a car crash) Did I leave the stove on?!

@GQ great subtitles, thank you.

This was awesome man thanks for making doing this

Great breakdown

Dunkirk was an awesome movie.

Simper Fi fro an old A-4 pilot. Loved your commentary

That three plane formation was SOP at the time for the RAF, they later (after the Battle of Britain) began to adopt the much better "Finger Four" formation developed by the Luftwaffe in Spain, and subsequently adopted by all modern air forces. It is period correct, even though in was demonstrated to be less effective. I noticed the F-18's in Independence day are using the same formation of a lead "Vic" and trail"Vic"...some people never learn.

The weather brief in Southern California in July would go like, “uh I got nothing for you.”

The Vic formation was historically accurate for the Spitfire surprisingly... Flying that close would require you to break left or right to avoid the other aircraft, allowing an attacker that surprised the formation, a rather predictable way to press the attack.

@6:35 -- _"United States Air Farce"_ , eh? Gotta love that friendly inter-service rivalry 🙂

I like Matt, hopefully we can see more of him. Very easy to understand and most importantly, hes passionate.

He should have addressed the Infinite Glide in Dunkirk.

I LOVE that his voice is DEFINITELY a pilot's voice (if that makes sense).

About that Spitfire tight formation: that's extremely accurate. Early in the war the RAF used this "always fly together" tactic for while. And the problems he mentioned with this tactic where the exact problems they had and the reason while they switched methods during the Battle of Britain.

Very informative and very entertaining too, thank you so much!

6:40 The us air "farce" XD

He should react to Stealth (2005). That would be hilarious.

I did grow up with this movie but looking back, I agree brother!

I just stumbled across these GQ videos of the pro's critiquing and can't stop watching them, learning so much, love the Les Stroud ones too!

Is it it just me or does the flight instructor guy in Iron Eagle look like he's either high or about to fall asleep?

*Kamikaze* pilots were *not locked* inside their cockpit. Though most weren't that enthusiastic about the whole concept, they felt obligated (more out of peer pressure than patriotism) to go out and try and sink a carrier. If they could not locate the target or if they had engine failure, they could and did return to base to land safely, have the technical issue sorted out or wait for better weather, then they would try again. There were also German and Russian 'semi-Kamikazes' who try to ram an enemy bomber then they believed they could still get out and use their parachute. Then there were also a tiny number of dedicated Germans performing true Kamikaze missions.

Love your reviews!

My father was in the USN and a movie they had on Beta-Max in the recruiting office was Flight of the Intruder. Surprised you didn't cover it.

Can we make this guy and Jocko Willink's break downs a regular series? Please? :)

The silent scene in Dunkirk of Tom Hardy’s plane gliding along the beach after he ran out of fuel is one of the best movie moments in history

Great reviews. Love it.

Matt, it's just the COOLEST thing ever that you were a Fighter Pilot.

16:12 you guys should've included the "I'm on him"

Thank you on the Soldier definition, we grunts in the Army feel the same way:-)

Surprised there was nothing mentioned about the retro reflective sights in the Dunkirk scene. It was one of the best portrayed ones I have ever seen - much better than even most modern depictions, where it just looks like an LED screen. There was a reason they did it that way, and why it seems to fade as the camera moves but seems to actually stay still. It is super interesting, and one of the little details that is often overlooked.

Yes, Dunkirk was indeed and wonderful movie... and yes, FLY NAVY! ❤️

USMC here, darn right Squid. Doggies are Army, Jarheads are Marines.

Marines get called devil dog a lot, particularly as a LCPL. Typically when in trouble. Lol. Senior officers tended to call me by rank even as a junior enlisted.

Thank you Whiz for your service sir

He should review The Red Baron with Matthias Schweighöfer and Til Schweiger. It is such a good movie, and one of the few world war movies where you can really sympathize with the Germans. One of my favorite lines is when Richthofen says something to the effect of "we don't shoot down men, we shoot down airplanes"

You should review flight of the intruder,greatest fighter jet movie ever.

It's been a long time since I heard "Brain Housing Group" lmao. 👍

The three plane “Vic” in tight formation was RAF doctrine until mid way through the Battle of Britain when they largely changed to the finger four.

Love this video!

Critics: please realize he’s being interviewed, they ask him a thousand questions and he answers. Then they chop and edit

Actors always want their faces to be seen. That is why they will NEVER keep the oxygen mask on!

As someone else said, British at that time didn't adapt the fluid/finger 4 formation yet, and they did flew that tight in a "welded wing" formation. During Battle of Britain, the Brits quickly found out just how unwieldy and vulnerable, especially "tail end Charlie" was since the Germans always gunned for the last guy in the formation. So the Brits quickly adapted the Luftwaffe formation and eventually, that evolved into the classical "Finger/Fluid Four" formation that basically all fighter pilots uses, a flight lead, his wing man, a secondary lead, and his wingman for maximum sit awe and mutual support.

Educational. Entertaining. Thanks!

6:34 "the United States Air Farce" Haha

Always get a giggle out of how much rivalry there is between the services in US military...How about watching "Firefox"?

Dunkirk is a great movie, but I was hoping you could explain how the boat captain was able to out maneuver the Germain airplane. The boat captain had some knowledge about aiming the airplane guns and how to evade them.

We need a part 3!

As a former member of the Air Force I approve of and miss this type of inter-service banter.

I'm glad he mentioned the lack of deflection shooting in Dunkirk. Even the second shot is edited to show him only shooting when the plane is inside the reticle. It's a shame Nolan had such little regard for the audience that he thought they wouldn't understand this simple concept. Then again, that spitfire glided forever and even went up to take out a stuka.

"If you saw somebody in that mirror, it was already time to bale out!" Guenther Rall, paraphrased.

Do more of him pleeeez!!!