This film was surprisingly well done with very believable flying sequences. My only criticism is that the history was not quite what I wanted as there is a lot of dispute as to whether Arthur Ray Brown shot down the Red baron or it was ground fire. Might of made for some good drama with a post shoot down take on that.

A film of rubbish. Take the ending for example. It simply didn't happen that way. Brown has been thoroughly discredited as being the one who shot down the Red Baron. There is little doubt that Von Richthofen was was shot down by Australian ground troops. Brown attempted to take the credit and is held in contempt as a result. Just watch this film only if you are interested in WW1 aircraft. The rest is as I say just pure rubbish.The end: Von Richthofen's guns had jammed. He could only fire short bursts of a few round at a time. He was chasing a Sopwith Camel piloted by a novice. Brown had fired a burst but some time before and had turned away. Von Richthofen disobeyed his hard and fast rule of never flying low over British lines. He ran into a torrent of machine gun and rifle fire. He suddenly pulled up and half landed and half crashed and died as an English soldier arrived on the scene.

It is pointed out that "goofs" were made in the making of this film. (A) Von Richofen is depicted flying a Fokker D-VII over a year before the plane was actually introduced (and prior to flying the Triplane) (B) Brown's squadron is shown flying SE 5s when in actuality, they were equipped with Sopwith Camels.I suspect these were intentional choices on the part of the director. Von Richtofen's plane in early 1917 was actually an Albatros D5 - an improvement over the earlier D3, but having an unfortunate tendency to shed its wings in a dive. Even if this were corrected in a modern reproduction, the Albatros design is nose-heavy and difficult to control.The Sopwith Camel, while an effective fighting machine, was called th "Widow-maker" for good reason. It's extremely high-torque rotary engine made it very difficult to fly and very unforgiving of mistakes. The SE 5 and 5a, on the other hand were fairly stable craft and easier for novice pilots (they've been used exclusively in other WW I films).Only hard-core WWI historians would have noticed these inconsistencies, and I suspect the choices were made for the safety of the stunt pilots. Don't let them stop you from enjoying some great aerial combat scenes.Incidentally, the events that were reversed were the circumstances of von Richtofen's crashes. In the first one, he is depicted as crash landing, while in the second (fatal) one, the plane actually lands quite well by itself (this would NEVER have happened in a Fokker triplane!)It was actually the other way around. The first time, the wounded von Richtofen managed to bring his Albatros to a landing. The second time -already dead before he hit the ground - the plane crashed in no-man's land near an Australian unit who may indeed have hit him from the ground.

I have just written a comment to "ACES HIGH" (1976) and that remind me of this film which I watched as kid when it was released; since then I have watched it only once and that was more than enough. As Kevin well says "it is a complete waste of time". Apart from the dog-fights which are nicely done the rest is a sequence of badly patched scenes with actors struggling with a lousy script and equally lousy direction. I do not remember the silly German accents mentioned by Kevin in his comment, but that is another pathetic mistake; if Corman tried to make more convincing the characterization of the German pilots why didn't he use German actors or have those parts dubbed? On the other hand is good example of the appalling Hollywood-style of film-making with their "villains" so clearly identifiable, not only by their cruel actions but also by their grotesque accents.Talking about "cruel actions" the ridiculous scene were Lieutenant Hermann Goering murders English nurses during an attack on an airbase is an absolutely disgusting piece of propaganda done with "historical hindsight". If you want to a see a factual, moving, very well acted and directed film about the air war during WWI watch "ACES HIGH" (1976) or that wonderful classic "THE DAWN PATROL" (1938) you shall not be disappointed.