USSR: Men Of The Earth And Sky - Experimental jets and helicopters
USSR: Men Of The Earth And Sky - Experimental jets and helicopters
USSR: Men Of The Earth And Sky - Experimental jets and helicopters (00:31:35) Narrator moves up to being a jet test pilot, photographs of him at this time, footage of a mission in which he was to fire out a dummy in a test seat from a flying jet, the dummy only comes out part way blocking his field of vision in the cockpit, he is forced to blindly land the jet (00:33:38) More old photographs of the narrator, more footage of the helicopter trip to Paris - they leave Russia, cross Denmark, land at some aero-club, a crowd greets them curious to see the strange helicopter the body of which stands on two very tall legs (00:36:24) Narrator recalls testing helicopters in the Crimea - a view from a car windshield driving toward the Crimea airstrip, the narrator takes part in a test of a new safety feature on a helicopter where the helicopter while in flight has its blades blown off to allow for the safe evacuation of the pilot (without him getting caught in the blades), some dramatic footage of this test (00:39:50) More old photos of the narrator as a test pilot, narrator and other test pilots walk along the runway to their respective jets, narrator takes off with another pilot in an experimental jet with a funny pointy coned front, another experimental plane is shown, this one looks like a bombing jet that has a glass nose (00:42:16) The helicopters continue to travel, now over the water and clouds (00:43:00) Footage of the narrator participating in tests on weightlessness, he and a co-pilot create a gravity-less situation by going up and down in a large passenger plane, in their tests they carry mice and rabbits in cages who go spastically flying into weightlessness and a cat who scurries about crazily trying to get his footing, a man also gives zero-g a shot with much less amusing results (00:44:38) Photographs of narrator with the first Soviet astronauts including YURI GAGARIN (00:45:41) Narrator tests out wacky flying machine he calls a vertical riser (kind of a helicopter without a propeller) (00:47:50) Narrator brings in a noseless jet that seems to hover to a landing, more photographs of the narrator - one of them with his family (00:48:55) Helicopters reach Paris, footage of the airshow: giant Russian helicopters with as much passenger space as a good sized plane - one helicopter is has very long legs that allow it to stradle and carry large cargo (it airlifts a full size bus), another helicopter demonstrates its fire fighting capabilities by emptying a large steam of water on the ground, Gagarin sign autographs for a crowd, jets from countries around the world are shown on the runway then flying across the sky - doing spins, flying in formation with long thick jet streams trailing behind them (00:53:34) An Italian jet crashes and kills pilot and 7 others, unfortunately the footage is interspersed with dramatic photos of the narrator (00:54:43) Jets fly in formation, one jet flies upside down over another and the pilots from their cockpits exchange a smile (00:55:25) Narrator and his Soviet helicopter crew are commissioned to do two jobs in Swizterland: the first is installing large, heavy electrical poles - the helicopters lower the poles into holes in the ground, the second is a place small house on a cliff in the mountains, there is no actual footage of this, just the narrator describing the operation with photographs and other footage thrown together (00:58:15) Nifty footage from the windshield of a car of driving through a tunnel carved in the side of a rocky cliff that borders a large body of water (00:58:30) Segment on fighting a forest fire in France, large Soviet helicopters are filled with water which they drop over tremendous fierce flames - the footage of the fire battle is interspersed with photographs of the narrator and his aernautic associates, this is done in a dramatic fashion to build up to the narrrator's explanation that one of the Soviet helicopters went down in the forest flames (00:01:44) Close up of spinning radar dish, the narrator straps into a jet and takes off, his afterburner is still visible in a long shot of his take off from the opposite end of the runway, the afterburner leaves the screen as the jet ascends into the sky (00:03:20) End credit