Space:Above and Beyond (Space 2063)

[taiidantomcat]

http://geekdad.com/2015/09/space-turns-20/







Happy 20th! Just watched the pilot again today

[mrvr6]

i remember that!
it got canned after the 1st season didnt it? i know it ended in a pretty brutal way

[GTX_Admin]

The keen eyed amongst you should identify the location shown here: 

[GTX_Admin]

Look familiar?

[taiidantomcat]

The keen eyed amongst you should identify the location shown here: 

Strained my eyes trying to figure out where they filmed those scenes, assuming it was Marine or Navy base. then I saw a Hornet  with this tailI knew it was AUS!:

[GTX_Admin]

RAAF Williamtown Air Base, New South Wales, Australia to be exact - the RAAF lent the TV show some of their old SA-43 Endo/Exo-Atmospheric Attack Jet "Hammerhead) fighters.

[tankmodeler]

I have to say that I never bought into the concept that soldiers would transition back and forth from fighter pilots to grunts. Pilots are simply too well trained to be expended as grunts. It never could happen. If they had split the character focus from a group of grunts to a group of pilots, it would have worked so much better. Kinda like in Starship troopers, a group of soldiers and a group of pilots. All in combat against the same enemy but different stories because of different roles.

And as an aerospace engineer, the "Hammerhead" was always a lame looking endo-exoatmospheric concept to me. Never liked is at all.

Paul

[GTX_Admin]

I have to say that I never bought into the concept that soldiers would transition back and forth from fighter pilots to grunts. Pilots are simply too well trained to be expended as grunts. It never could happen.

I actually disagree - if you made the fighter simple enough (i.e. so it was essentially nothing more than just another vehicle/weapon to be trained upon) one could conceivably have this scenario play out.

[taiidantomcat]

I have to say that I never bought into the concept that soldiers would transition back and forth from fighter pilots to grunts. Pilots are simply too well trained to be expended as grunts. It never could happen.

It happens all the time in the Marines actually.



(note the big pretty wings of gold)

 Firstly, these are not Soldiers they are Marines. And every Marine is a rifleman. Marine pilots frequently do tours with Grunts often as FACs, JTACs, ANGLICO, and other duties for ground combat.

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/83026/heart-bronze-yuma-pilot-earns-high-military-award#.VkOoTLerTIU

Here is Marine pilot who is rotating back in with Marine Special Ops after doing a stint with VMA-211

http://archive.armytimes.com/article/20131215/NEWS/312150006/Heroic-Harrier-pilot-recalls-chaotic-ground-attack-Camp-Bastion

So its not entirely far fetched, plus its mentioned a couple times in the series with the that they are so short on manpower that they don't really have much choice. the whole series is based off world war II and you have historical battles like Guadalcanal where the fighting was so close that they were arranging aircraft on the ground so their machine guns could be used in defense of Henderson Field and pilots and others were joining the fray. There really is a precedent for it, and one of the things I liked about it as its very unique to the USMC. Using whole squadrons of nothing but pilots as grunts? a little far fetched yes. Pilots as grunts? not far fetched at all, and of course squadrons in the Marines are more than just 5 or 6 people.